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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT 



BY 

E. E. MILLER 

Managing Editor The Progressive Farmer and Gazette 



RALEIGH 

PRESSES MUTUAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1910 



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Copyrighted 1910, 
By E. E, miller. 



'CLA2?r)757 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE SOUTH spends $50,000,000 a year for commer- 
cial fertilizers, and the amount is steadily increas- 
ing — increasing proportionately faster, in fact, tlian 
is the average crop production per acre. In other words, 
Southern farmers spend $50,000,000 a year for plant 
foods and then fail to improve their soils. This is true, 
not because commercial fertilizers are not good to use, 
but because they are used extravagantly and unwisely. 

If all this great sum were spent for the right sort of 
fertilizers — those needed by the crops on the particular 
lands where they are grown — and if due attention were 
paid to the physical condition of the soil — to the humus 
supply, to drainage, to tilth and texture, — the lands of 
the South would grow richer and richer with each suc- 
ceeding year, and instead of thousands of "worn-out" and 
abandoned fields, gullied, galled, overgrown with briers 
and bushes, there would be broad acres teeming with 
crops double and treble those nov/ grown by the average 
farmer. 

It is with the hope that they may point the way to a 
more judicious and profitable use of fertilizers that the 
following chapters have been written. While attention 
is called again and again to the waste of much of the 
money now spent for fertilizers, and while the fact that 
commercial fertilizers alone can not maintain soil fer- 
tility is repeatedly stressed, there has been no suggestion 
that commercial fertilizers should not be used. The 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

writer believes In commercial fertilizers, and that their 
use will increase; he also believes that it is sheer folly 
to use them on land that is not well drained or that is 
hard and dry because it lacks vegetable matter. Nor 
does he believe that it is any part of wisdom for a 
farmer to buy fertilizers without some knowledge of 
what the analysis on the bag means, of just what effect 
the particular combination he is buying may be ex- 
pected to have upon plant growth, and without some 
idea as to what elements of plant food the crop is likely 
to need most on the land where it is planted. 

It is believed that the man who is willing to read 
these pages carefully, and to think as he reads, will find 
some help in working out all these problems, and will be 
able to get a larger return from the fertilizers he uses. 
No attempt is made to tell any man just what fertilizer 
he should use or how much, since that is a manifest 
impossibility; but an effort has been made to make the 
fundamental facts underlying all fertilization so plain 
that any one can understand them, and to show the 
ordinary farmer, busy, and without any special learning 
along this line, how he can apply them on his own farm 
so as to make better crops and build up his soil. 

Raleigh, N. C. E. E. MILLER. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. What Fertilizers Are and Why Used. 

Different Kinds of Fertilizers— Three Plant Foods 
We Buy — Four Facts to Remember 9 

II. What Commercial Fertilizers Are. 

Sources of Plant Food — How Fertilizers are Made 
Up — What to Consider in Buying Fertilizers 14 

III. What Nitrogen Does and Where we Get It. 

Available and Unavailable Nitrogen — Nitrogen in 
Various Fertilizers — How Nitrogen Should be Ob- 
tained 18 

IV. About Phosphoric Acid. 

Supplies of Plant Food in the Soil — Available and 
Unavailable Phosphoric Acid — Principal Phos- 
phatic Fertilizers 23 

V. Potash in Commercial Fertilizers. 

Different Forms of Potash — Indiscriminate Use 
of Potash 27 

VI. Why Fertilizers Pay Best on Good Soils. 

Soil Texture and Crop Yields — How Humus Helps 
—Soils Too Wet and Too Dry— Why Fertilizers 
Often Fail to Give Results 31 

VII. How TO Tell What Fertilizer Your Soil Needs. 

Soil Fertility and Plant Food — Some Indications 
of Soil Needs — What Ten Experimental Plots Will 
Teach — It Pays to Make Tests — Three Problems 
in Use of Fertilizers 36 

VIII. The Special Needs of Different Crops. 

Some Special Needs of Wheat and Corn — Le- 
gumes and Trucking Crops — Rules Worth Re- 
membering — Formulas for Staple Crops 43 

IX. What the Analysis Means. 

Amounts of Plant Foods in a Fertilizer __ 50 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

X. How TO DO Home Mixing. 

Fertilizer Materials That Should Not be Mixed- 
How to Figure Out a Fertilizer Formula — Home 
Mixing a Simple Matter 52 

XI. Best Methods of Applying Fertilizers. 

Things to be Considered — One or Two Applica- 
tions — Five General Rules . . 58 

XII. A Brief Review of Foregoing Chapters. 

Three Plant Foods We Buy— What Limits the 
Crops — Adapting the Fertilizer to the Crops — 
What the Farmer Must Learn 62 

XIII. Keeping Up Soil Fertility. 

What Crops Take from the Soil — Growing Good 
Crops While Building up the Soil — Rotation and 
Soil Fertility 68 

XrV. Why Green Manures Benefit the Soil. 

Green Crops Make Plant Foods Available — Le- 
gumes Add Nitrogen — Nodules Indicate Nitrogen- 
Gathering Bacteria — Why We Inoculate Land 73 

XV. When and How to Use Green Manures. 

Best Way to Use Manure Crops — When it Pays 
to Plow Under a Green Crop — Points to Observe 
— Cover Crops for Green Manuring 77 

XVI. Making and Caring for Stable Manures. 

Stable Manures the Cheapest Fertilizers — What 
Stable Manures Contain — How Manure is Wasted 
—Why Manure Should be Spread as Made 83 

XVII. How AND When to Apply Stable Manure. 

Where Not to Use Stable Manure — Manure Not 
a Perfect Ration — How to Apply Manure — Where 
Likely to Give Best Results, . _ 87 

XVIII. The Profitable Use of Lime. 

Where Lime is Needed — Forms in Which Lime 
May be Had— Seven Rules 91 



INDEX TO APPENDIX. 

PAGE 

Plant Food in Tjrpical Soils 95 

What Crops Take From the Soil 96 

What Some Hay Crops Took Away 98 

Fertilizing Materials in Feeding Stuffs 99 

Analyses of Fertilizing Materials 101 

Value of Manure Produced by Live Stock 102 

Composition of Farm Manures 102 

Ten Sample Mixtures That Farmers Can Make 104 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT FERTILIZERS ARE AND WHY USED. 

FERTILIZERS, as they will be spoken of in these 
chapters, include any substance containing available 
plant food, which may be applied to the soil to 
promote the growth of the crops. 

This is one thing which many farmers seem to fail 
utterly to understand: that fertilizers are food for 
plants, not medicine for the soil, nor any sort of magic 
preparation to increase the crops in some mysterious 
manner. The man who applies nitrate of soda or acid 
phosphate or stable manure or any sort of "guano" to 
his crops, does for them just what he does for his live 
stock when he puts oats into his horses' feed boxes or 
swill into his pigs' troughs — he feeds them. 

Plants get from the air two foods — carbon and oxygen 
— and from the soil about a dozen others which are 
necessary to their development. Of these foods, how- 
ever, only three — nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, 
are at all likely to be lacking in the soil. These three 
elements, then, are the ones we apply in fertilizers. 
Sometimes, it is true, lime is supplied, but most soils 
contain all the lime needed for plant food, and it is 
generally used for its effect upon the texture of the soil 
or to sweeten it when sour. 

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF FERTILIZERS. 

With this definition of fertilizers in mind, it may be 
well next to consider the kinds of fertilizers or manures 
commonly used: 

2 



10 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

1. "Green manures" are crops grown to be returned 
to the soil; and they add humus only, except in the case 
of the legumes, such as the clovers, cowpeas, soy beans, 
the vetches, etc. These plants have the power, by the 
aid of certain bacteria, to take from the air much of 
the nitrogen needed for their growth and thus add to 
the nitrogen supply as well as to the stores of humus in 
the soil. They are discussed more fully in Chapters 
14 and 15. 

2. Stable manures are valuable both for the humus 
they add to the soil, and for the plant food they carry. 
While the amounts of plant food they contain are very 
small compared with that found in most commercial 
fertilizers, stable manures, by aiding bacterial activity 
and chemical action in the soil, also aid in making more 
available some of the plant food it already contains and 
are thus beneficial in three ways. 

3. "Commercial fertilizers," is the broad term which 
includes all the substances containing large quantities 
of plant food that are bought by farmers for their crops. 
The three elements of plant food they contain are 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash; and a fertilizer 
may contain one or all of these. Most fertilizers as 
sold are mixtures of substances containing these ele- 
ments in various proportions. Thus the ordinary "8 — 
2 — 2" fertilizer is likely to be made up of acid phos- 
phate, kainit, cottonseed meal, possibly nitrate of soda, 
and a "filler" of some kind. The same thing is true of 
practically all "complete" fertilizers — that is fertilizers 
containing all three of these essential foods. Commer- 



WHAT FERTILIZERS ARE AND WHY USED. 11 

cial fertilizers are generally bought solely for the avail- 
able plant food they contain. 

THE THREE PLANT FOODS WE BUY, 

These three plant foods, which we apply in fertilizers, 
have each a special function in the growth and develop- 
ment of the plant. While all are necessary to the proper 
development of the plant, a deficiency in the supply of 
either is noted by certain characteristic signs. Thus 
where there is not enough nitrogen, the plants are likely 
to make a scanty growth of stalk and foliage, to be 
yellowish in color instead of dark green, and to be gen- 
erally lacking in vigor and healthiness. Nitrogen, or 
ammonia, then, directly promotes the growth of stalk 
and leaves, the vegetative part of the plant. 

Phosphoric acid especially promotes the growth and 
development of the seed, and increases the vigor of the 
reproductive organs of the plant. When plants make a 
good growth of stalk and leaf, but produce light and 
chaffy grain or set few fruits, a lack of phosphoric acid 
is indicated. 

Potash is needed in the formation of starch or cellu- 
lose by the plant, and hence plants made up largely of 
starch cells, like the potato, the turnip and the cabbage, 
need large quantities of potash. Potash also assists in 
the formation of the seed, plays an important part in 
the development of the lint in cotton, adds strength to 
the straw in grain crops, and color and quality to fruits. 

FOUR FACTS TO REMEMBER. 

Thus, while each of these elements has a certain part 
to play in the building up of the plant structure, it is 



12 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

essential that all of them be available in sufficient quan- 
tities, since one can not take the place of another and 
all are necessary for the plant's perfect development. 

The reader will remember, however, that the plants 
cannot use any of the food that is in the soil for them, 
unless it is dissolved in the soil water so that it can be 
absorbed by the minute root-hairs which are the feeders 
of the plant. He will remember, too, that many soils 
do not hold enough moisture because of their lack of 
humus — "humus," meaning, as it is used here, decaying 
vegetable matter. Its effects upon crop growth and the 
need of most soils for it, will be treated more fully in 
succeeding chapters. Such soils dry out quickly and 
the plant food they contain is, to a large degree, useless 
simply because the crops are not able to take it up. On 
such soils the addition of humus may help the crops 
more than the application of plant food. Most Southern 
soils are deficient in humus, and this is why humus-sup- 
plying fertilizers — stable and green manures — produce 
effects entirely out of proportion to the amount of plant 
food they contain, as compared with commercial fertil- 
izers which contain very little or no humus. 

To recapitulate, then: (1) Fertilizers are substances 
containing plant food which is usually in a readily avail- 
able form, and (2) are, therefore, used to supplement 
the plant food that is already in the soil. (3) Since a 
liberal supply of soil moisture is necessary to enable the 
plants to utilize the food in the soil, and since a soil 
deficient in humus, as most Southern soils are, is almost 
sure to be subject to extremes of drouth and wetness. 



WHAT FERTILIZERS ARE AND WHY USED. 13 

the addition of humus to most soils is as important as 
the addition of plant food; and (4) this is why stable 
and green manures are worth more — considering the 
amount of plant food they contain — than commercial 
fertilizers. 



CHAPTER IL 
WHAT COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS ARE. 

AS HAS been explained, commercial fertilizers are 
used solely for the plant foods — nitrogen, phos- 
phoric acid and potash — they contain, and have 
not the effect on the physical standard of the soil 
which is such a marked characteristic of stable and 
green manures. Some commercial fertilizers, it is true, 
contain lime which is often of value in correcting acidity 
and improving soil texture; but this lime is seldom 
taken into consideration in estimating the value of these 
fertilizers, and in this chapter will be left out of consid- 
eration. 

Commercial fertilizers, as we buy them, are usually 
mixtures of two or more ingredients, each of which may 
contain one or more elements of plant food. For ex- 
ample, an "8 — 4" fertilizer — one containing 8 per cent 
of available phosphoric acid and 4 per cent of potash — is 
usually made up of acid phosphate and kainit, with sand 
or loam as a "filler." The common "8 — 2 — 2" fertilizer 
is likely to be made up of acid phosphate, kainit and 
cottonseed meal; and so on. 

The various materials which go into the make-up of 
commercial fertilizers may, therefore, be divided into 
three classes according to whether they supply nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid or potash. Some of them, it is true, 
furnish two or even all three of these elements, in which 
case the percentage of each must be considered. 



WHAT COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS ARE. 15 

SOURCES OF PLANT FOOD. 

The most common fertilizing materials which supply 
nitrogen may be divided into two classes, organic and 
inorganic — those derived from animal or vegetable life, 
and those that are minerals. In the first class come 
cottonseed meal, tankage, dried blood, fish scrap, Peru- 
vian guano, etc. In the second class are nitrate of soda, 
sulphate of ammonia, and two or three other substances 
seldom used in the South. 

There is much difference in the various forms of the 
nitrogen in these different substances, in the amount of 
it that can be used at once, the time of its becoming 
available, etc.; but these points will be treated more in 
detail in the next chapter. 

Phosphoric acid is derived chiefly from acid phosphate 
and basic slag. The various bone products are gradu- 
ally being used less and less, and a pound of available 
phosphoric acid in them usually costs more than in acid 
phosphate. There is also some phosphoric acid in such 
organic fertilizers as cottonseed meal, Peruvian guano 
and fish scrap. 

Potash is derived chiefly from the various forms of 
potash salts taken from the German potash mines — 
kainit, muriate, sulphate, sylvinit, "manure salts," etc. 
Of course, some potash is found in practically all fertil- 
izers of vegetable origin, — cottonseed meal, for example, 
containing about li per cent. Ashes and tobacco refuse 
are also potash-supplying materials. A special chapter 
will be devoted to the consideration of potash and the 
various forms in which it may be obtained. 



16 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

HOW FERTILIZERS ARE MADE UP. 

These, then, are things to be remembered about com- 
mercial fertilizers: They are valuable solely as sources 
of the different plant foods, and their value depends 
upon the amounts of these foods they contain and their 
availability for the use of plants; they may be made up 
of a great many different materials, some of which con- 
tain one, some two, and some all three of the plant foods 
we buy; we may buy one element or one ingredient at a 
time — nitrate of soda, for example, which supplies only 
nitrogen; acid phosphate, which supplies only phosphoric 
acid, or cottonseed meal, which supplies some of each of 
the three elements, — or we may buy them in a mixture, 
as is generally done; the standard "brands" of fertilizers 
usually .sold consist of two or more ingredients mixed 
together, generally with a valueless "filler" of some sort 
to bring their value down to the low prices which most 
people seem willing to pay. 

WHAT TO CONSIDER IN BUYING FERTILIZERS. 

From these facts it is easy to deduce others: In 
buying a fertilizer the first thing to consider is the 
amounts of each of the plant foods it contains and their 
value; the next thing is the need of the crop, on the spe- 
cial soil where it is to be grown, for these foods. A 
pound of potash, for example, costs now about 6 cents, on 
the average; a pound of phosphoric acid, about 51 cents, 
and a pound of nitrogen, about 2 cents. A farmer can 
easily ascertain from these figures which of two fertil- 
izers is the cheaper source of any of these plant foods. 



WHAT COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS ARE. 17 

Again, some crops need much larger quantities of 
certain elements than do others. An amount of nitrogen 
that would give an excess for an oat crop might be in- 
sufficient for a corn crop on the same land. 

Soils also differ widely in their demands for the 
various elements. The sandy slopes of the Atlantic 
Coast need large amounts of potash, while on the black 
lands of the Mississippi Valley it almost never gives pro- 
fitable returns. 

It thus becomes evident that the farmer must know 
what each plant food does for his crop, the commercial 
value of each food, the amounts of each that his fertil- 
izers contain, and something of the demands of his crop 
and his soil for these foods, before he can buy or use 
fertilizers intelligently and to the greatest profit. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT NITROGEN DOES AND WHERE WE GET IT. 

WHILE NITROGEN is found in various forms or 
combinations in the different fertilizers, there is 
only one form in which it can be used as food by 
plants — the form which the chemists call nitrate. The 
nitrogen in ammonaic compounds must be> changed, by the 
action of bacteria, to this nitrate form before it can be 
used; while that in organic matter — green crops, cot- 
tonseed meal, or stable manure — must first be changed 
to ammonia by one class of bacteria, and then to nitrates 
by another class. 

This explains why the nitrogen in nitrate of soda is 
so much more quickly used by plants than that in cotton- 
seed meal or in a turned-down green crop. In the first 
case it is ready to be dissolved by the soil moisture and 
at once taken up by the root-hairs to feed the plant; in 
the other it must be acted upon by two sets of bacteria 
which do this work of making the nitrogen compounds 
available for use — "ammonifying" and "nitrifying" bac- 
teria they are called. These bacteria work best in a loose 
soil, where there is a good supply of moisture, consider- 
able warmth and plenty of air. Tillage greatly aids their 
work, while an excess of water in the soil will almost 
entirely stop it. In a very wet season crops may turn 
yellow and cease to grov/ simply because the soil bac- 
teria can not perform their work and no nitrogen is 
made available as plant food. 



WHAT NITROGEN DOES AND WHERE WE GET IT. 19 

AVAILABLE AND UNAVAILABLE NITROGEN. 

From this it will be seen that the different nitrogenous 
fertilizers — those supplying nitrogen — are adapted to 
special purposes. Nitrate of soda is the most readily 
available of those commonly used, and should be ap- 
plied, as a rule, to growing crops where it can be used 
before it is leached out of the soil by rains. In many 
cases where it is applied even at planting time, large 
percentages are lost before the crops can use it. The 
nitrogen in sulphate of ammonia is not quite so readily 
available as that in nitrate of soda, but is ready for use 
sooner than that in fish scrap or tankage or cottonseed 
meal or stable manure. Peruvian guano is a splendid 
source of nitrogen for most crops because there may be 
found in it various forms of nitrogen, some readily 
available and others which will only gradually be- 
come so. 

These facts must all be taken into consideration in 
buying fertilizers for any crop. If the fertilizer is to 
be applied before the crop is planted, the nitrogen may 
be supplied by cottonseed meal or stable manure; if at 
planting time, the ideal would probably be to have some 
ready for use at once, some that would be so in a little 
while and some, again, that would only become available 
as the growth of stalk and leaf neared completion. For 
example, in using a fertilizer for fall-sown wheat or 
oats, the nitrogen might largely be supplied by the roots 
and stubble of a leguminous crop; but there would also 
be needed a little of some quicker-acting form to supply 
the needs of the crop during the winter and early spring 



20 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

when nitrification — that is, the changing of the insoluble 
nitrogen to the available nitrate form — takes place very 
slowly. If the crop in the spring is yellow and scrubby, 
a top dressing of nitrate of soda will be the best thing 
to start it off to immediate growth. The same fertilizer 
would be the best for rapid-growing garden or truck 
crops; while for corn, with its heavy root growth and 
the rapid nitrification that takes place during the sum- 
mer, stable manure or a turned-down green crop is 
probably best of all. 

AMOUNTS OF NITROGEN IN VARIOUS FERTILIZERS. 

As sources of nitrogen, then, nitrate of soda is the 
most readily available, the most easily lost from the 
soil, and the best for short-lived, quick-growing crops; 
sulphate of ammonia is a little less readily available; 
while vegetable and animal fertilizers furnish nitrogen 
in the best form for crops whose growth is compara- 
tively slow and whose needs are best met by a supply 
which gradually becomes available. 

The percentages of nitrogen contained in the most 
commonly used fertilizers are as follows: Dried blood, 
high grade, 13 to 14 per cent; low grade, 6 to 12 per 
cent; fish scrap, 7 to 8 per cent; tankage, 4 to 10 per 
cent; cottonseed meal, 6.2 to 6.8 per cent; sulphate of 
ammonia, 2 per cent; nitrate of soda, 15.5 per cent. 
There is a wide variability in the composition of all or- 
ganic fertilizers and they should always be bought by 
analysis — that is, the price should be determined by the 
amounts of plant food they actually contain. 



JWHAT NITROGEN DOES AND WHERE WE GET IT. 21 

Right here it may be well to say that ''ammonia" is 
a nitrogen compound, of which 82.35 per cent is nitro- 
gen. That is, the percentage of ammonia in a fertilizer 
may be reduced to its equivalent in nitrogen by multi- 
plying by .823 5. Three per cent ammonia means 2.47 
per cent of nitrogen. Similarly, to reduce nitrogen to 
terms of ammonia, it should be divided by .823 5. For 
example, a fertilizer containing 3.5 per cent nitrogen 
contains 3.5 -^. 8235, or 4.22 per cent of ammonia. 

HOW NITROGEN SHOULD BE OBTAINED. 

The buying of nitrogen in commercial fertilizers for 
most farm crops is not a practice to be recommended, 
since it is the most expensive and the most easily lost 
plant food, and since, by the growing of leguminous 
crops, unlimited quantities may be obtained from the 
air. For truck and garden crops, on the other hand, the 
readily available forms in commercial fertilizers should 
be used in addition to the organic forms. 

It has been estimated that a crop of cowpeas making 
two tons of hay to the acre will have gathered from the 
atmosphere 130 pounds of nitrogen, worth $26.00 to the 
soil, and other leguminous crops may do as well. It is 
easy to see that it is much better to get nitrogen in this 
way than by buying it at 2 cents a pound, especially as 
the legume practically always has a feeding value great 
enough to make its growing profitable without taking- 
this addition of nitrogen to the soil into consideration. 

All crops that make a large or rapid growth of leaves 
and stalks need liberal supplies of nitrogen, and where 



22 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

the growth of these is insufficient its need is clearly in- 
dicated. An excess of nitrogen, however, will produce 
too great growth of stalk and leaf at the expense of the 
fruiting qualities of the plant — for example, potatoes 
"running to tops," or cotton "going to weed." 



CHAPTER IV. 
ABOUT PHOSPHORIC ACID. 

&rw-«HE SPECIAL purposes served by phosphoric acid in 
I the building up of the plant structure have already 
been mentioned — increased fruitfulness and added 
weight of grain or seed together with earlier maturity. 

The absolute necessity of an abundant supply of this 
element to promote these processes, and the compara- 
tively small amount that is available in the ordinary soil, 
have combined to make it the leading ingredient of most 
commercial fertilizers. Perhaps the fact that it is, pound 
for pound, the cheapest of the three elements usually 
bought, also helps to account for this; but there is, in 
most cases, a sound reason for the comparatively large 
percentage of phosphoric acid in the ordinary commer- 
cial fertilizer. 

Many people remembering the large quantities of this 
element applied to many Southern soils year after year, 
and considering also that very little indeed is lost from 
the soil by leaching, conclude that it is a wrong policy 
to continue to buy phosphoric acid, since, as they reason, 
most soils should be well supplied with it already. 

THE LARGE SUPPLIES OF PLANT FOOD IN THE SOIL. 

They forget that even on the most heavily fertilized 
soils all that has been applied would amount to an 
almost inconceivably small percentage, that most soils 
contain proportionately much less of this than of the 
other elements, and that when it is applied to the soil it 



24 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

may "revert" back to an insoluble form and be unavail- 
able for the use of plants. The top six inches of soil on 
an acre of ordinary land may contain from 1% to 1% 
tons of phosphoric acid — as much as would be applied 
in 156 tons of acid phosphate, or enough to produce 
good ordinary crops for more than 500 years. The 
trouble is simply that a very small part of it is in such 
form that it can be made use of by the crops. What is 
applied in fertilizers is supposed to be in such form that 
it can be used at once, and is applied for this reason, 

"AVAILABLE" AND "UNAVAILABLE" PHOSPHORIC ACID, 

Phosphoric acid, then, is found in two forms: Avail- 
able, or soluble, — when it can be used by the plants; and 
insoluble, or unavailable, — when it can not be used. 

It must be remembered, however, that all "available" 
phosphoric acid is not equally available. Some of the 
various forms which the chemists group under this term 
are much more readily taken up by the plant than are 
others; while all of them are likely to undergo changes 
in the soil — to make other chemical combinations — and 
thus to pass from a soluble state to one partially or 
wholly unavailable. On the other hand, tillage, plant 
growth and bacterial action are all the time changing the 
insoluble forms of all the plant foods into available 
forms. This explains why a soil may contain large 
stores of plant food and at the same time make very 
small crops, and also why no soil can be entirely ex- 
hausted of plant food and made utterly unproductive. 



ABOUT PHOSPHORIC ACID. 25 

THE PRINCIPAL PHOSPHATIC FERTILIZERS. 

The principal commercial sources of phosphoric acid 
are raw phosphate rock, acid phosphate, bone meal and 
basic slag. 

Bones contain in their raw state from 18 to 2 5 per 
cent of phosphoric acid, which becomes very slowly avail- 
able. Steamed bone, from which the fat and tissues have 
been largely removed, contains 22 to 2 8 per cent in a 
more readily available form; while bone dissolved with 
sulphuric acid contains from 15 to 17 per cent, which is 
practically all available. Bone meal is usually the 
steamed bone ground, and its immediate availability de- 
pends largely on the fineness to which it is ground. In 
addition to the phosphoric acid, raw bone contains from 
2 to 4 per cent of nitrogen; steamed bone, l^^ to 2 l^ 
per cent, and dissolved bone, from 2 to 3 per cent. All 
the bone fertilizers are what are called "durable" fertil- 
izers, — that is, they become available a little at a time 
for many years. For this reason they are especially 
adapted for use on permanent grass fields and for or- 
chard trees. 

Basic slag, or Thomas phosphate, is a by-product from 
the refining of iron ore for steel making. It contains 18 
to 2 4 per cent of phosphoric acid and about 30 per cent 
of lime. The phosphoric acid is less available th^n that 
in acid phosphate. 

Phosphate rock, containing from 2 4 to 3 2 per cent of 
phosphoric acid, is mined in South Carolina, Florida, and 
3 



26 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

Tennessee, and has lately been found in several Western 
States. When ground in its natural state it is known as 
raw rock, or "floats," and all the phosphoric acid in it 
is regarded as unavailable. When mixed with stable 
manure or with any considerable quantity of decaying 
vegetable matter, it will, however, gradually be changed 
into forms that the plants can use. 

Ordinarily this raw rock is treated with about its own 
weight of sulphuric acid, thus forming acid phosphate, 
the most common source of phoshoric acid. From 14 
to 16 per cent of available phosphoric acid is usually 
found in acid phosphate and in no other fertilizer, per- 
haps, is the phosphoric acid so readily soluble in the soil 
water and thus so quickly used by the plants. 

Cottonseed meal contains about 2 V2 per cent of phos- 
phoric acid; fish scrap, 3 to 4 per cent; Peruvian guano, 
10 to 15 per cent, and tankage, 1 to 2 per cent. 

For most crops acid phosphate is probably the cheap- 
est and most effective source of available acid phosphate. 
On acid soils basic slag, although a little less readily 
available, may on account of the lime it contains give 
better results; while on soils very full of vegetable mat- 
ter, floats may often be used ^o advantage. 

Most Southern soils are deficient in phosphoric acid, 
and its application in some form is a necessity if these 
soils are to be improved. Most lands, however, if given 
better tillage, well drained, and well supplied with 
humus, would beyond all question, make much better 
use of what was applied and give far greater returns 
from equal quantities than at present. 




CHAPTER V. 

POTASH IN COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 

OST READY-mixed fertilizers contain potash In 
quantities varying from 1 per cent to 5 per cent, 
and there could probably be no better evidence 
than this offered as to the inadvisability of buying 
fertilizers just because they are called "corn" or 
"cotton" or "tobacco" fertilizers. For some crops on 
most soils, and for practically all crops on some soils, 
the percentages of potash in most ready-mixed fertilizers 
are entirely too small, while there are other soils on 
which it seems to be an absolute waste to supply potash 
at all. The sandy soils of the Atlantic Coast need lib- 
eral supplies for the general crops, corn, cotton, and 
small grains. On the red clay soils of the Piedmont 
and mountain sections of the South, potash is needed 
for special crops — fruit and truck, potatoes, etc.; while 
on the soils of the Gulf States, even on the sands ot 
southern Mississippi and Alabama, potash does not 
seem to be needed even for. these crops. In other 
words, the cotton farmer on the coastal plains of North 
and South Carolina v^^ho buys a "2 — 8 — 2" fertilizer 
does not get nearly so much potash as his crops demand, 
while the cotton farmer in southern Missississippi who 
buys the "2 — 8 — 2" fertilizer wastes practically $2.40 
for every ton of such fertilizer he buys, since experi- 
ments have shown that on his soil the addition of potash 
produces no noticeable effect. 



28 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

In ordinary soils there are far larger quantities of 
potash than of either of the other plant foods which we 
buy in commercial fertilizers, and in most of these soils, 
by good cultivation, the growing of legumes and the 
occasional use of lime, a fair supply of this element could 
be readily made available for most crops. Since very 
little, if any, potash is ordinarily lost from the soil by 
leaching or evaporation, it is the part of wisdom for the 
farmer to be sure that there is an adequate supply in 
his soil. It is only on soils where experiments have 
shown that potash does not give results that it is safe 
to dispense with this element if commercial fertilizers 
are used at all. The fruit grower, trucker and tobacco 
raiser especially need to be sure that there is an abun- 
dant supply of potash ready for the needs of their crops. 

DIFFERENT FORMS OF POTASH. 

Practically all the potash of commerce comes from the 
Stassfurt mines in Germany, although it comes to us in 
several forms and under a variety of names. 

Probably the most common form is kainit, a crude 
salt containing about 12^ per cent of potash. Kainit 
also contains in addition to the potash large quantities 
of sodium chloride, or common salt. This is supposed to 
be useful in preventing the rust of cotton for which 
kainit is so often used. On the other hand, kainit is 
not considered the best form of potash for use on Irish 
potatoes or tobacco, as it tends to make potatoes of an 
inferior quality — that is, with a smaller per cent of 
starch — and injures the quality of the tobacco leaf. 



POTASH IN COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 29 

Muriate of potash is a refined form of kainit contain- 
ing about 50 per cent actual potash, and wherever kainit 
may be used, the muriate will do equally as well and is 
usually cheaper, considering the actual amount of potash 
in both fertilizers, for the simple reason that the same 
amount of plant food can be obtained at less expense for 
transportation. 

Sulphate of potash is another well-known compound 
containing 4 8 to 50 per cent of potash. The actual pot- 
ash in it, pound for pound, usually costs a little more 
than that in muriate, but it is regarded as a superior 
form for potatoes and tobacco and is generally used by 
tobacco growers in preference to other sources of potash. 

Still another form of potash is what is known is syl- 
vinit. It usually contains 16 per cent of actual potash. 
What is known as manure salts or low-grade sulphate of 
potash contains about 2 6 per cent of actual potash. It 
is sometimes used in ready-mixed fertilizers, but seldom 
sold separately. 

Other common sources of potash are wood ashes and 
tobacco refuse. Unleached hardwood ashes usually con- 
tain from 3 to 8 per cent actual potash. Ashes that 
have been exposed to the weather seldom contain more 
than 1 to 3 per cent. Tobacco stems contain from 5 to 8 
per cent and from 3 to 5 per cent of phosphoric acid. 
Tobacco refuse is not only valuable as a fertilizer, but 
is also often of great service as a preventive of damage 
by insects. Cottonseed meal contains 1.5 to 2 per cent 
potash, and cottonseed about 1.2 per cent. 



30 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

THE INDISCRIMINATE USE OF POTASH, 

In applying potash as a fertilizer it is usually best, as 
is also the case with phosphatic fertilizers, to apply it 
severtil days before the seed are planted. This is espe- 
cially true of the potash salts containing chlorine — mu- 
riate or kainit. 

As has already been stated, the use of lime tends to 
make more available the potasli already in the soil and 
the same purpose is served to a certain degree by acid 
phosphate. On the other hand, potash when mixed with 
the soil almost immediately forms new compounds in 
which it is held until released by bacterial action or 
tillage, so that the loss from the soil is very small. 

There can be no doubt that if Southern farmers would 
take the pains to learn something of the actual needs of 
their soils in regard to potash, hundreds of thousands of 
dollars could be saved every year in Southern fertilizer 
bills. As was said in the beginning, soils of some sec- 
tions are very deficient in potash, and here the ordinary 
fertilizers could have a considerable per cent of potash 
added to decided advantage. In other sections, where 
the soils already contain an abundance of this element, 
it is sheer wastefulness for the farmers to continue buy- 
ing something which their crops do not demand. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHY FERTILIZERS PAY BEST ON GOOD SOILS. 

ALL SOILS are made up of very small particles of 
stone, mixed with decayed vegetable and animal 
matter. The fine powder that can be scraped off 
the exposed surface of a limestone ledge is soil in its 
formative period. In this softened stone, broken up as 
it is by rain and heat and cold, the little gray lichens 
which grow on the rocks find a foothold; as they die and 
decay larger plants follow, and so on. It is by such pro- 
cesses as these, by the wearing of the rains and streams, 
by volcanic action and by the effects of plant growth 
and tillage that our soils have been formed. But this 
finely ground rock scarcely deserves the name of "soil" 
until it has vegetable matter mixed with it, and until 
those minute plants we call bacteria begin to grow in it 
and help change the plant foods it contains to more 
available forms and thus make it a better home for the 
plants we grow to live in. 

Soils are spoken of as "clay," "loam," "sand," etc., as 
the soil particles are fine and closely compacted, or larger 
and looser. A very sandy soil has the disadvantage of 
drying out quickly. The soil particles are so large that 
there is not enough moisture held in the thin film which 
surrounds each of these particles — the "soil moisture" 
this is called, as distinguished from the water which in 
wet weather fills the spaces between the soil grains — to 
supply the crops with the water and the plant food they 
need. On the other hand, in a clay soil, the very small 



32 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

particles may be so closely packed together as to prevent 
the circulation of air in the soil, which is, as has been 
explained, also necessary for the growth of plants. 

SOIL TEXTURE AND CROP YIELDS. 

Thus it is that a very loose or a very tight soil is less 
likely to give good crops than one in which the soil par- 
ticles are small enough to hold a plentiful supply of 
moisture, and yet not so close together as to prevent the 
aeration of the soil and the full development of the fine 
root-hairs. What are known as "loam" soils — those 
made up of clay, silt, and sand in varying proportions — 
are, therefore, generally regarded as the best and most 
productive lands. 

There are, however, considerable differences in the 
soils best suited to different plants. A rather tight clay 
is a better wheat soil than one that is loose and sandy. 
The Irish potato thrives best on a loose, friable loam, 
while the sweet potato is at home in very sandy lands. 
The best soil for apples is not the best for peaches; and 
the adaptable redtop will thrive on a stiff clay where 
the more particular timothy will last only a year or so. 

It is safe to say, as a general rule, however, that the 
ideal soil, so far as physical condition is concerned, is 
one that is deep, friable — that is, easily worked, — not 
very "light" nor excessively "heavy," and containing lib- 
eral quantities of decaying vegetable matter, 

HOW HUMUS HELPS TO MAKE GOOD CROPS. 

This decaying vegetable matter is the "humus," about 
which something has been said, and which is by all odds 
L^e greatest need of most Southern soils. 



WHY FERTILIZERS PAY BEST ON GOOD SOILS. 33 

When a crop of cowpeas, for example, or a dressing 
of stable manure is plowed into a sandy soil, as it decays 
the small particles fill up the larger spaces between the 
sandy grains, and as each tiny particle is surrounded by 
a thin film of soil water, this thus enables the soil to re- 
tain much more moisture. The rain that falls neither 
leaches through nor evaporates from the land so rapidly. 
The decaying vegetation furnishes food for the bacteria 
that help to make the unavailable plant food in the soil 
available for the use of the plants. Plant foods, nitro- 
gen especially, that would before have been v/ashed out 
of the soil by the rains are held for the use of the crops; 
the soil particles are brought closer together, as it were, 
and the whole soil becomes a more suitable place for 
the plants to grow in. 

When the green crop or the stable manure is mixed 
with a clay soil and decays, it prevents the soil particles 
from packing so tightly together again, and thus permits 
of a freer circulation of the soil air and prevents the 
minute spaces between the soil particles from remaining 
filled with water. 

SOILS TOO WET AND TOO DRY. 

Many farmers can not understand why in a very wet 
season or on a water-logged soil the plants will turn 
yellow and fail to grow the same as in a very dry time. 
The two troubles, in fact, while slightly different in oper- 
ation, amount to practically the same thing. On the 
dry soil the plant is unable to find enough soil moisture 
to dissolve the plant food which it must have for its de- 



34 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

velopment and, therefore, it fails to grow. In a very dry 
time the evaporation of water from the leaves goes on 
faster than it is taken in by the roots, and the plant 
withers. 

On the wet soil, the minute spaces between the soil 
particles are filled with water, and there is no circula- 
tion of air, no bacterial action, the whole machinery — if 
the term may be used — is brought to a standstill, the 
plant food is not made available, and the crop is slowly 
starved — or it may possibly be more accurate to say, 
slowly smothered. 

This will explain why either the addition of humus 
to a soil or the drainage of it will make it "drier in a 
wet time and wetter in a dry time." More moisture can 
be held without filling up the capillary spaces, and this 
moisture runs away or evaporates less readily. 

WHY FERTILIZERS OFTEN FAIL TO GIVE RESULTS. 

Every farmer knows that it would be a mere waste to 
put a great quantity of fertilizer on a "sobby" soil and 
expect to grow a crop. There is too much water in such 
soils, and they must be drained before good results can 
be expected. 

Farmers must learn, too, that it is unprofitable to put 
great quantities of fertilizer on dry, dead soils, deficient 
in humus, where a part of the plant food may be leached 
away in wet weather, and where all of it may remain 
practically useless in a dry time because there is not 
enough moisture in the soil to dissolve it so that it can 
be taken up by the plants. 



WHY FERTILIZERS PAY BEST ON GOOD SOILS. 35 

It is essential to tlie economical use of any kind of 
fertilizers to keep these facts in regard to soil formation 
and plant growth in mind, because without them there 
is danger of forgetting the true purpose of fertilizers — 
the furnishing of readily available food for the crops, 
and because, important as it is to learn about fertilizers 
and how to use them, it is even more important to learn 
how to take care of the soil so as to give the crops a 
chance to grow and get the most out of the fertilizers 
applied. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW TO TELL WHAT FERTILIZER YOUR SOIL 

NEEDS. 

THE FARMER who has carefully read the preceding 
chapters will understand that there are several 
things to be considered in regard to the fertilization 
of any crop before he goes to buy fertilizers for it. 

He will remember, in the first place, that fertilizers 
are used to supply food for the plants, and that until it 
is dissolved in the soil-water no one of the elements of 
plant food, which we supply in fertilizers can be used by 
the plant. He will remember that it is only in certain 
form that any of the plant foods can be absorbed by the 
soil-moisture and that these foods are changed largely 
tc these soluble forms by the action of the soil bacteria. 
These bacteria, he will remember, get their food largely 
from decaying vegetable matter in the soil and thrive 
best in soils that are loose, well drained, warm, and with 
a fair supply of moisture. 

SOIL FERTILITY AND PLANT FOOD. 

He will remember that in a very dry season large 
quantities of plant food may lie in the soil perfectly use- 
less to the crop, because there is not enough moisture 
in the soil to dissolve them so that they can be taken 
up by the crop. Conversely, in a very wet soil, the ex- 
cess of water will prevent the circulation of the air 
which is so necessary if the soil bacteria are to thrive as 
they should. In short, he will remember that soil fer- 



HOW TO TELL WHAT FERTILIZER YOUR SOIL NEEDS. 37 

tility depends as much or even more upon the condition 
of the soil as affected by the supply of humus and mois- 
ture, than upon the actual amount of plant food in the 
Boil. 

It will be, of course, equally necessary for him to re- 
member the three plant foods which we buy in fertilizers 
and their special uses: 

(1) Nitrogen, whose special office it is to promote the 
growth of stalk and leaf and add vigor to the plant. 

(2) Phosphoric acid, which is especially important in 
developing the fruit and seed and in promoting earliness. 

(3) Potash, which adds strength to the stalk, color 
and flavor to the fruit, plumpness to the grain and is of 
special importance in the process of development of starch 
and fiber. 

Of course, he will remember also that there are large 
amounts of all these plant foods in the poorest land and 
that the purpose in buying fertilizers is to supply these 
foods in a form more readily available than they are to 
be found in the soil. 

With these general principles in mind, he will be ready 
to begin the study of the special needs of each of his 
crops on his particular soil. He can form a general idea 
as to what each plant most needs by the sort of growth 
it makes on his land and he should be able, if he studies 
his soil at all carefully, as every good farmer must, to 
judge with fair accuracy as to its physical condition and 
its ability to make good use of the fertilizers he may 
supply. 



38 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

SOME INDICATIONS OF SOIL NEEDS. 

(1) If his soil is what is commonly called rich, and 
the plants grow tall, strong, and of rich green color, he 
may be sure that there is an abundant supply of nitrogen 
present in his soil. 

(2) If the plant makes poor growth, but fruits heavily 
— that is, if his cotton sets many squares on small stalks 
or his oats and wheat bear heavy heads on short stems, 
he may be assured that there is at least a fair supply of 
phosphoric acid present and that the principal need of 
his soil is for more nitrogen. 

(3) If his crops lack general vigor, if his cotton rusts, 
his fruit is of poor quality and his corn makes spindly 
stalks and poorly filled ears, he will have strong reason 
to suspect, especially if his land is light and sandy, a 
deficiency in the supply of potash. 

Of course, he can not expect the best results from any 
fertilizer on land that is sour or water-logged or that is 
dry, hard and cloddy, or that runs together and bakes 
after a rain, 

WHAT TEN EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS WILL TEACH. 

He will understand, too, that on most soils there is 
very often need of more than one of these plant foods, 
and that while he can form a general idea from the 
growth of the crops, he must make careful comparative 
tests, to acquire accurate information as to which plant 
food is the most needed and in what quantities. 

Various methods have been outlined for making these 
fertilizer tests. One of the simplest and most accurate 



HOW TO TELL WHAT FERTILIZER YOUR SOIL NEEDS. 39 

is to divide an acre, or half-acre, into ten equal portions, 
as follows: 

Plot No. 1. Plant without any fertilizer. 

Plot No.2. Nitrogen should be applied at the rate, say, 
of 15 pounds — 100 pounds nitrate of soda. 

Plot No. 3. Apply 25 pounds potash (50 pounds mu- 
riate or 2 00 pounds kainit). 

Plot No. 4. Phosphoric acid at the rate of 2 5 pounds 
per acre (about 156 pounds 16 per cent acid phosphate). 

Plot No. 5. Here both nitrogen and phosphoric acid 
will be used. 

Plot No. 6. Nitrogen and potash will be used. 

Plot No. 7. Both potash and phosphoric acid will be 
applied. 

Plot No. 8. All three of these elements are used. 

Plot No. 9. Here, too, use all three elements, but only 
one-half the quantity as in No. 8. 

Plot No. 10. is left without fertilization, as a check. 

To make such a test of any value, the soil in all the 
plots must, of course, be as nearly uniform as possible. 
Each must be planted and cultivated in the same manner 
and the product of each weighed or measured. Then, 
too, the cost of the fertilizers and the amount of increase 
in the crop must be calculated before any one can form 
an idea as to which fertilizer will pay best on his soil. 

TEST THOROUGHLY WITHOUT JUMPING AT CONCLUSIONS. 

It must be understood that on the same soil different 
results will be obtained in different seasons and the re- 
sult of any one season's testing is to be regarded as 



40 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT, 

merely a guide, and not as an invariable prescription. Of 
course, larger or smaller quantities of any of these fer- 
tilizer materials may be used than here indicated, but 
those given are large enough to afford a fair test and to 
be comparable to the fertilization ordinarily given staple 
crops. 

It must be remembered, too, that the fertilization indi- 
cated for one crop will not be at all what is needed by 
other crops. This point has already been mentioned and 
will be referred to again. 

IT WILL PAY TO MAKE THESE TESTS, 

Of course, it takes some trouble to carry out an ex- 
periment like this, but it is time and labor well spent. 
And when it is remembered that the Southern States 
spend over $50,000,000 a year for commercial fertilizers, 
it is easily realized that anything which will enable these 
fertilizers to be used with more regard to the special 
needs of the crops to which they are to be applied is 
worth while. 

Often the farmer who is unwilling to make anything 
like a close study of the fertilizer needs of his soil is en- 
abled to make a test of the most simple order which will 
enable him to decide what fertilizers to buy and to use them 
with much more economy than he could hope to do if he 
merely guessed at the needs of his crop without any study 
at all. He can leave a few rows of average land not fer- 
tilized, and compare the yields obtained from that with 
the yields obtained from the fertilized rows alongside 
them. If he uses two kinds ^f fertilizers he can fertilize 



HOW TO TELL V/HAT FERTILIZER YOUR SOIL NEEDS. 41 

small plots side by side with these fertilizers and leave 
one not fertilized, and draw a fair idea as to which of 
them is the more profitable to use. If he applies a top 
dressing, or makes a second application to his crops, he 
can experiment by leaving a few rows and note results, 
or if he is not in the habit of doing these things, he can 
make the application and judge pretty well the benefits 
to be derived from it. 

In short, anything that will enable him to obtain more 
accurate ideas as to the fertilizer needs of his soil is well 
worth considering and will pay handsomely for the time, 
labor and money spent in carrying it out. It must be re- 
membered, however, that guess-work is seldom accurate 
and that one may draw ideas entirely misleading, from 
comparative tests in which there is not accuracy or where 
the results are only estimated. 

THE THREE PROBLEMS IN THE USE OF FERTILIZERS. 

The farmer who wishes to use fertilizers on a business 
basis and get the most out of them will not be content 
with such guess-work. He will make a close study of his 
soil and try to find out just what it needs for each of the 
crops to be grown on it. Above all, he will realize that 
no application of plant food can take the place of vege- 
table matter, which the soil must have to produce the 
best results. The soil is more important than the fer- 
tilizer and unless the soil is in the proper condition, best 
results can not be obtained even from the fertilizers 
which are most needed by the crop which is being grown. 

The primary problem is that of getting the soil in the 
4 



42 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

proper condition. Next comes the finding out of what 
is really needed by the soil, and the third and last great 
problem is the economical purchase of those elements 
which the crop requires. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SPECIAL NEEDS OF DIFFERENT CROPS. 

DIFFERENT crops, as well as different soils, have 
certain special needs which must be considered in 
the purchase of fertilizers if the best results are 
to be obtained. Some plants can utilize plant food in 
forms which are utterly unavailable to other crops. Cer- 
tain crops, too, require much larger amounts of certain 
elements, comparatively speaking, than are required by 
other crops growing on the same soil with them. The 
fertilizer needed on a. given soil for a corn crop will not 
be the same as that needed on the same soil by a crop of 
wheat, or cowpeas, or cotton. All these things the farm- 
er must consider when he goes to buy his fertilizers. It 
is impossible to give any exact formula which will be 
best for any crop under all conditions, but there are a 
few general principles which should be kept in mind. 

SOME SPECIAL NEEDS OF WHEAT AND CORN. 

Corn, for example, needs an abundant supply of all 
the elements of plant food, requiring during the growing 
season especially large amounts of nitrogen to enable 
it to make a strong growth of stalk and leaves, and thus 
to attain that vitality and vigor of growth which will 
enable it later in the season to mature a heavy crop of 
grain, for which considerable quantities of phosphoric 
acid and potash will be demanded. 

Wheat and oats need a liberal supply of nitrogen dur- 
ing the first few weeks of growth. Throughout the win- 



44 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT, 

ter, growth proceeds more slowly and there is less de- 
mand for so much readily available food — in fact, large 
quantities of soluble nitrogen applied to a wheat or oat 
crop in the fall would be likely to be wasted, at a con- 
siderable expense, by the leaching of the winter rains, es- 
pecially if the crop had not made a good start before 
cold weather came on. It is different in the spring 
when the new growth begins; then there is a demand for 
readily available nitrogen, and this is why a top dressing 
of nitrate of soda so often produces such marked results 
on a field of winter grain. As the crop matures there 
must be available a sufficient stpre of phosphoric acid 
and potash to insure stiffness of straw and well-filled 
heads. A lack of these elements at this time will mean 
weak straw and shrunken, immature grain. 

LEGUMES AND TRUCKING CROPS, 

For most of the leguminous crops it is necessary on 
many soils to supply only phosphoric acid, since they 
are able to get their supply of nitrogen from the air. 
They can not do this, however, unless the particular bac- 
teria which thrive on their roots are present in the soil, 
and in some cases it is advisable to use nitrogenous fer- 
tilizer to give the young legumes a start so that they will 
be able to supply their own nitrogen. This is often true 
of the alfalfa crop. 

Of course, on those soils where potash is lacking it 
will also be necessary to supply this element in connec- 
tion with the phosphoric acid. 

Quick-growing crops, as are most vegetables, demand 



THE SPECIAL NEEDS OF DIFFERENT CROPS. 45 

large supplies of readily available food, since in their 
few weeks or months of life there is not time for much 
elaboration of the plant food in the soil. This is why 
the trucker finds it profitable to apply quantities of fer- 
tilizer to his potato or onion crop which the general 
farmer could not afford to put on his cotton or corn. It 
may be worth while to remark right here, however, that 
most of these truck crops are grown in soils already 
fertile and that this is one of the reasons why such 
large quantities of fertilizer can be profitably applied to 
them. As a rule, the richer the land the more fertilizer 
that can be profitably used. This is readily explained 
when one remembers that the ability of any plant to 
take up the food in the soil depends upon the supply of 
soil moisture and the bacterial life of the soil. In a 
fertile soil these favorable conditions exist and the plant 
food which may be applied is readily utilized by the 
growing crop. In a poor soil — one that is dry and de- 
ficient in humus, or water-logged and deficient in bac- 
terial life — plant food applied in fertilizer remains, to a 
large extent, useless to the crop, simply because condi- 
tions are not such that the plants can take it up. 

SOME RULES WORTH REMEMBERING. 

A few general rules — subject to many exceptions, as 
are all general rules — may then be given as guides to 
profitable fertilization. 

(1) Quick-growing crops require large amounts of 
plant food in available forms, since there is not time 
during their growth for the supplies of plant food in the 
soil to be converted into soluble forms. In this connec- 



46 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

lion it must be remembered, however, that warmth and 
moisture are the greatest factors in promoting the bac- 
terial activity which changes insoluble plant food to sol- 
uble forms and that these factors are stronger in the 
summer than during the winter. Nitrification, for ex- 
ample, is much more rapid in a well-tilled corn field dur- 
ing the summer months than in the same field in winter, 
or when it is planted in a crop which receives no cul- 
tivation. 

(2) Slow-growing crops, which occupy the land for a 
number of years, can usually utilize to best advantage 
those forms of plant food which become slowly available 
through long periods of time. One would supply phos- 
phoric acid to his potatoes, for example, in the most 
readily available form, acid phosphate, while for his 
grass or his orchard trees, the slower-acting and less 
readily available bone meal is often considered pre- 
ferable. 

(3) Crops w'hose principal value depends upon their 
growth of leaves and stalks demand liberal supplies of 
nitrogen. Those largely made up of starchy cells need 
much potash; while those in which grain or seed is the 
principal consideration need especially phosphoric acid. 
One wishing to grow crisp, tender lettuce, for example, 
would want to fertilize it heavily with nitrogen. If he 
were raising potatoes, he would be sure that his soil 
was abundantly supplied with potash. If a grain crop 
was being grown, he would give first heed to the supply 
of phosphoric acid. Of course, any crop must have 
enough of all of the elements and will be always limited 



SOME^SPECIAL NEEDS OF DIFFERENT CROPS. 47 

by that element which is less abundant. But the pro- 
portionate needs of crops vary widely. A fertilizer, for 
example, which would have enough potash for a crop of 
oats might be entirely too low in this element to pro- 
duce a maximum yield of Irish potatoes. 

(4) The better the soil is, as a rule, the larger the 
quantity of fertilizer which can be profitably applied 
and the more completely it will be used by the crops. 
This supposes, always, that the fertilizers will be 
adapted to the needs of the crop on that particular soil. 

The application of these principles to the individual 
crop must be left to the man who is growing the crop 
and who is familiar with the conditions of the soil on 
which it is being grown. To attempt to give an absolute 
formula for any crop is pure quackery unless one knows 
exactly what sort of soil it is to be grown upon. Cer- 
tain formulas, however, have come to be largely accept- 
ed as standards, and a few of these may be given: 

SOME FORMULAS FOR STAPLE CROPS. 

For cotton on sandy loams of the Atlantic States fer- 
tilizers of the following analyses have been recommend- 
ed: (1) Phosphoric acid, 7.5 per cent; potash, 2.5 per 
cent; nitrogen, 2.5 per cent. (2) Phosphoric acid, 8 
per cent; potash, 3 per cent; nitrogen, 3 per cent. (3) 
Phosphoric acid, 9.5 per cent; potash, 3.4 per cent; 
nitrogen, 3.3 per cent. On the red clay soils of these 
States it is recommended that the percentage of potash 
be reduced one-half. 

On the same soils a fertilizer for corn containing 9.5 
per cent phosphoric acid is supposed to be fairly well 



48 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

balanced when it contains 3.6 per cent nitrogen and 1 or 
2 per cent potash, as it is used on red or sandy soil. 

The per cent of nitrogen, however, should, of course 
be decreased as the land is richer, or increased where 
smallness of growth indicates more need for it. 

The Alabama Experiment Station recommends the fol- 
lowing formulas for cotton: On red lime lands, 10 per 
eent phosphoric acid, 2.3 per cent nitrogen, and .6 per 
cent potash; on sandy soils, 9.1 per cent phosphoric acid, 
2 per cent nitrogen, and 2.3 per cent potash; for the 
Long-Leaf pine lands, 8.7 per cent phosphoric acid, 1.9 
per cent nitrogen, and 2.8 per cent potash. 

The standard cotton formula for most of the soils of 
Mississippi is two parts of acid phosphate to one of 
cottonseed meal, while for corn equal parts of acid phos- 
phate and cottonseed meal are recommended. 

A standard potato fertilizer analyzes 7 per cent phos- 
phoric acid, 4 per cent nitrogen, and 8 per cent potash; 
but this is suited only to sandy lands. For clayey soils, 
10 per cent phosphoric, acid, 4 per cent nitrogen, and 6 
per cent potash is a better mixture. 

All these analyses are, of course, only suggestive, and 
are given merely to show the great variations in the 
needs of the same crops on different soils and of differ- 
ent crops on the same soil. It is only when the farmer 
makes a study not only of the character of his soil, but 
also of the particular needs of each crop, that he can 
buy fertilizers intelligently; and the notion that any one 
brand of fertilizers will give equally good results on all 
crops is one that can not be too soon gotten rid of. 



CHAPTER IX. 
WHAT THE ANALYSIS MEANS. 
rf^HE READER of these chapters will by this time, of 
I course, understand that in buying fertilizers he 
must be guided solely by the amounts of plant food 
in them. The quantities of these plant foods are re- 
quired by law in most States to be indicated on the bag or 
other package containing the fertilizer. They are given 
in the form of percentages — that is, a fertilizer will be 
labeled, for example, "8 per cent available phosphoric 
acid, 2 per cent nitrogen, and 2 per cent potash." There 
may be other figures on the bag, although the general 
tendency of legislation is now to allow only these three 
items, which really tell all that is usually told about the 
composition of the fertilizer. 

Sometimes the percentage of unavailable phosphoric 
acid will be given. This may safely be disregarded as 
it is of very slight, if any, value to the farmer and is not 
considered in fixing the price of fertilizers. Sometimes, 
also, a certain per cent of "bone phosphate of lime" will 
be given. This item, too, should be disregarded, as it 
invariably represents the same thing as the phos- 
phoric acid. In other words, "bone phosphate of lime" 
is merely a trade name for the compound in which the 
available phosphoric acid is found. A fertilizer contain- 
ing 8 per cent phosphoric acid will contain 16 per cent 
of this "bone phosphate of lime," as it is called, al- 
though the use of the word "bone" is without any justi- 



50 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

fication whatever, and the terms mean one and the same 
thing. These figures are simply put on the bag to make 
the purchaser think he is getting more than is really 
there. 

Another term frequently found is "ammonia." Some 
times the nitrogen in the fertilizer is figured in terms of 
ammonia, and again one will find figures something like 
this: "Nitrogen, 2 per cent, equivalent to ammonia, 2.4 
per cent." This, again, is mere duplication, since am- 
monia is merely a compound containing 82.35 per cent 
of nitrogen. In other words, 1 pound of nitrogen is 
equivalent to 1.2 pounds of ammonia, and the placing of 
both terms in the analysis serves merely to confuse the 
purchaser. 

THE AMOUNTS OF PLANT FOODS IN A FERTILIZER. 

The percentages that are given simply mean so many 
pounds to each 100 pounds of the fertilizer. That is, 
in an 8 — 2 — 2 fertilizer there will be 8 pounds of phos- 
phoric acid, 2 pounds nitrogen, 2 pounds potash to each 
100 pounds of the fertilizer. So in a ton there will be 
2 times this amount, or 160 pounds phosphoric acid, 
40 pounds nitrogen and 40 pounds potash. Remember- 
ing this, it will be easy for the farmer to find out just 
how many pounds of each of these plant foods he is 
supplying to an acre of land. If he uses 2 00 pounds per 
acre of 8 — 2 — 2, he will apply 16 pounds of phosphoric 
acid, 4 pounds of nitrogen and 4 pounds of potash to 
each acre of land. 

Always in buying fertilizers then, they are to be 



WHAT THE ANALYSIS MEANS. 51 

bought by analysis — that is, by the actual amounts of 
plant food they contain. While it is true that the same 
amounts of plant food in some fertilizers may be worth 
more than equal quantities in others, it may be laid 
down as a general rule that there is little difference in 
the materials used in the making of most of the brands 
commonly sold, and that when one has no way of know- 
ing what materials have been used in the mixing of a 
fertilizer, he should be guided by the figures on the bag 
showing the amounts of each of the plant foods it con- 
tains. Trade names and special crop brands do not 
count; the thing to consider is the actual amount of 
each of the plant foods contained in a ton or a bag of 
the mixture. 

The way, then, to decide which of two fertilizers is 
the cheaper is to ascertain what each actually contains, 
and to figure out the value of the plant food in each, at 
the same prices. While the cost of the different plant 
foods varies in different localities, nitrogen is usually 
figured at 2 cents a pound, potash at 6 cents and phos- 
phoric acid at 51 cents. The variation in the prices of 
the two last named elements may be as much as one 
cent per pound, while the nitrogen often costs 2 5 cents 
or more per pound. Indeed, it is seldom that plant 
foods can be had at these accepted valuations in mixed 
fertilizers, since there is always the cost of mixing and 
often freight charges on account of the use of fillers, to 
be added to the first cost of the materials used in the 
fertilizers. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW TO DO HOME MIXING. 

THE FARMER who has arrived at the point of pur- 
chasing his fertilizers for the plant food they really 
contain and who wishes to buy only such quantities 
of each of the plant foods as are -profitable and most 
likely to be demanded, will often find it to his advantage 
to mix his own fertilizers instead of buying those already 
mixed by the manufacturer. 

If he does this, he will, of course, buy those materials 
from Avhich the manufacturers themselves make up the 
standard formulas usually sold. In most cases he will 
be able in this way to effect a considerable saving in 
his expenditures for fertilizers, as the work of mixing 
can usually be done for less on the farm, especially if 
there is any considerable quantity to be mixed, than the 
manufacturer charges for doing it. 

Another thing to be considered is that the man who 
mixes his own fertilizers can know just what ingredients 
supply the various plant foods — something he is unable 
to do when he buys a ready-mixed fertilizer. The to- 
bacco or potato grower for example, is not able to tell 
whether the potash he uses comes from muriate or sul- 
phate, though this is often a matter of considerable im- 
portance to him. 

The only equipment needed for mixing is some sort of 
scales for the necessary weighing, and a good tight floor 
on which the materials to be mixed are spread in layers. 



HOW TO DO HOME MIXING. 
1 



53 




7 6 

FERTILIZER MATERIALS THAT SHOULD NOT BE COMBINED. 

The above diagram, reproduced by courtesy of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, shows in graphic form the fertilizing materials that may, and 
those that should not, be mixed together. The heavy lines unite materials 
which should never be mixed, the double lines those which should be applied 
immediately after mixing, and the light lines those which may be mixed at 
any time. 

The materials represented by the different figures are as follows : 1. Acid 
phosphate ; 2, Thomas slag ; 3, Barnyard manure ; 4, Norwegian nitrate ; 5, 
Kainit ; 6, Bone meal ; 7, Nitrate of soda ; 8, Potash salts ; 9, Lime nitrogen ; 
10, Sulphate of ammonia ; 11, Lime 

With this key in mind, it is easy to see at a glance what substances should 
not be mixed together. For example. No. 3, barnyard manure, is connected 
with 2, Thomas slag : 4, Norwegian nitrate ; 9, lime nitrogen, and 11, lime, 
with the heavy lines. This means that it should not be mixed with any of 
these substances. With all the others listed it may ba safely mixed. 

Again, a double line runs from No. 2, Thomas slag, to No. 5, kainit. This 
means that these substances, if mixed, should be applied to the soil imme- 
diately ; while with any of the substances to which a light line runs kainit 
may safely be mixed at any time. 



54 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

Then a man with a spade begins at one end, cutting 
down through the successive layers of the different in- 
gredients, and tossing them into a heap at one side. 
When the whole pile has been gone over in this way the 
process is repeated, and if the materials are in good 
condition and the mixing has been carefully done, the 
fertilizer will, in most cases, be mixed just as well as 
those that are mixed in the factories. 

Of course, if the farmer wishes to be sure of the com- 
position of his fertilizer, he must know — not guess at — 
the amount of each material he is using, and this means 
that he must weigh out each ingredient before mixing. 

HOW TO FIGURE OUT A FERTILIZER FORMULA. 

Suppose a farmer has cottonseed meal, acid phosphate 
and muriate of potash and wishes to make a fertilizer 
analyzing 8 per cent phosphoric acid, 3 per cent nitro- 
gen and 5 per cent potash. This means he will want 
160 pounds of phosphoric acid, 60 pounds of nitrogen 
and 100 pounds of potash. His cottonseed meal will 
analyze, if it is a fair sample, 2.5 per cent phosphoric 
acid, 6.2 per cent nitrogen and 1.5 per cent potash. 
The acid phosphate, if of high grade, will contain 16 
per cent available phosphoric acid. The muriate of pot- 
ash contains 50 per cent actual potash. 

To go more into detail, it is like this: There are 3 
pounds of nitrogen in each 100 of the fertilizer. There- 
fore, in a ton there wall be 2 times 3, or 60 pounds. 
In 100 of cottonseed meal there are 6.2 pounds of nitro- 
gen and, therefore, there will be needed as many hun- 



HOW TO DO HOME MIXING. 55 

dred pounds of cottonseed meal to supply this nitrogen 
as 6.2 will go into 60. Dividing, we find this to be 9.7 
times, or 970 pounds. The cottonseed meal will also 
supply 24 pounds of phosphoric acid — 970 the number 
of pounds, multiplied by 2.5, the percentage of phos- 
phoric acid — , and 14.5 pounds, approximately, of pot- 
ash. This will leave 136 pounds of phosphoric acid to 
be supplied by acid phosphate, in each 100 pounds of 
which there are 16 pounds of phosphoric acid; and 85.5 
pounds of potash to be supplied by the muriate of pot- 
ash, in each 100 pounds of which there are 50 pounds of 
actual potash. Dividing the 13 6 by the 16 — the num- 
ber of pounds by the percentage — as before, we get 8.5, 
or 850 pounds of phosphoric acid; and dividing the 85.5 
pounds of potash by 50, we get 1.71, or 171 pounds 
of muriate of potash. This will lack but 9 pounds of 
being a ton, and it is as near as any fertilizer will ap- 
proach the exact analysis. 

It is seldom, however, that the man who mixes his 
own fertilizers will mix for any special analysis. He 
will figure, rather, by the actual amount of plant food 
he is applying to each acre, and not by the total number 
of pounds of fertilizer which he puts on. 

So, let us suppose that he wishes to supply the equiv- 
alent of 300 pounds of 8 — 2 — 2 fertilizer to his crop. 
This will mean that he wishes to supply 2 4 pounds of 
phosphoric acid, 6 pounds of nitrogen, and 6 pounds of 
potash to each acre. If in this case he has the same ma- 
terials as before — acid phosphate, cottonseed meal and 



56 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

muriate of potash — he can secure the approximate 
amounts of each plant food he wishes by mixing 1,12 5 
pounds acid phosphate, 800 pounds cottonseed meal and 
7 5 pounds of muriate of potash. This will give him a 
fertilizer containing 2 00 pounds of phosphoric acid, 49.6 
pounds of nitrogen, and 4 9.5 pounds of potash in a ton. 
That is, the analysis will be, approximately, 10 per cent 
phosphoric acid, 2| per cent nitrogen, and 2h per cent 
potash. To get the equivalent of the 300 pounds of 
8 — 2 — 2 he will need to use only 2 40 pounds of this 
mixture. 

HOME MIXING REALLY A SIMPLE MATTER. 

It will thus be seen that the home mixing of fertil- 
izers is a mere matter of simple mathematical calcula- 
tion, that when the farmer once knows the composition 
of the materials he is using in his mixture, it is a simple 
matter for him to figure out the percentages of plant 
food in any combination he may make. 

In the appendix will be found the analyses of the 
most commonly used fertilizing materials, and from the 
figures there given any one can easily calculate the 
amounts of plant food in any combination he may wish 
to make, or tell how to combine the different ingre- 
dients to make any combination he may wish. There 
will also be found a list of standard mixtures. 

The indirect advantages of home mixing will, in many 
cases, amount to as much, or more, than will the direct 
saving in the purchase of the plant foods in the ma- 
terials to be mixed, over what they would cost if bought 



HOW TO DO HOME MIXING. 57 

in a ready-mixed fertilizer. When the farmer begins to 
adapt his fertilizers to his soil and his crop, and not 
until then, he is on the road to the successful use of 
commercial fertilizers; and while to successfully mix 
fertilizers at home he must study not only the needs of 
each particular crop but also the amounts of the differ- 
ent plant foods and their relative availability in each 
of the combinations he may propose to make, there is 
nothing in this work beyond the comprehension of any 
man of ordinary intelligence who is willing to give a 
little careful thought and painstaking labor to the solv- 
ing of one of his greatest problems. 



CHAPTER XL 

BEST METHODS OF APPLYING FERTILIZERS. 

BY FAR the larger part of the fertilizers used in the 
South is applied in the drill or row with the seed 
at planting time, and when economy of the oper- 
ation is considered, it is likely that in most cases it is 
as good plan as any. Theoretically, the fertilizers ap- 
plied to the soil should be distributed as uniformly as 
possible throughout the entire feeding ground of the 
plants. In practice, however, by putting the fertilizers 
in the row results equally good may be obtained, es- 
pecially if they are mixed well with the soil and not 
brought into contact with the seed in sufficient quanti- 
ties to reduce their powers of germination. This is 
especially true when small quantities of fertilizer are 
used. Where large quantities, 1,000 pounds or more, 
are used, especially if the soil is well supplied with 
humus, it is usually advisable to distribute the fertil- 
izers over all the land and mix them with the soil. 

SOME THINGS TO BE CONSIDERED, 

Some fertilizers, however, applied in considerable 
quantities may injure the seed unless thoroughly mixed 
with the soil or applied some time before the seed are 
planted. It is not considered safe to have the seed 
where they may come into contact with any considerable 
quantities of most commercial fertilizers. So where 
they are applied in large amounts it is safer to have 
them mixed well with the soiL 



BEST METHODS OF APPLYING FERTILIZERS. 59 

The question of availability of the different fertil- 
izers is also to be considered in connection with the 
method of application. Fertilizers that are slow in be- 
coming available should be applied before the seed are 
planted. Those quickly available, and especially those, 
like nitrate of soda, which are likely to be lost from the 
soil, should only be applied when the crop has begun 
growing. Of course, where only a small quantity of 
these readily available fertilizers is used, or where they 
are mixed with other less soluble materials, they may 
be applied at planting time as a matter of economy, but 
in such cases it is likely that there is always a slight loss 
by leaching. 

Different crops, too, demand different methods of ap- 
plication. Wheat and oat growers have found it profit- 
able to apply the fertilizer through the drill at seeding 
time. It might often be better to have it sown on the 
land some days before the seeding, but it is not likely 
that in most cases the extra availability of the fertilizer 
and the lessened risk as regards germination would pay 
for the extra labor. With corn and cotton it is almost 
the universal custom to sow the fertilizer with the 
planter or with a guano sower which puts it in alongside 
the row. Unless very large quantities — larger, in fact, 
than are likely to be applied on these crops under ordi- 
nary conditions — are used, this is probably the best 
method, though it is advisable to have a machine that 
will sow the fertilizer in a wide belt rather than in a 
single narrow line, and that will also mix it with the 



60 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

soil SO that it does not come directly into contact with 
the seed. 

ONE OR TWO APPLICATIONS. 

Potato and truck growers, who may use as much as 
2,000 pounds to the acre, and whose land is generally 
rich aside from this fertilization, are advised to distribute 
the fertilizer over the land. Two applications are often 
profitable with truck and garden crops. 

There is no doubt that in many instances a second ap- 
plication to corn, cotton and other staple crops produces 
an increase in the yield, but the most careful experi- 
ments indicate that it is not often that this increase is 
great enough to pay for the extra labor of application. 
This rule, however, does not apply when nitrate of soda 
is used, as its immediate availability suits it for use in 
this way. In fact, any crop that seems to be suffering 
from a deficiency of nitrogen may be benefitted by an 
application of nitrate of soda during the growing period. 
Its great value as a top dressing for wheat and oats in 
the spring is well known, and those farmers who depend 
on commercial fertilizers for the making of their corn 
crop find that it often pays to use it just as the corn is 
coming into tassel or beginning to ear. 

Grass fields are usually top dressed, that is, the fer- 
tilizer is sown over them with a drill or broadcast by 
hand in the fall or early spring and, preferably, har- 
rowed in. Orchard trees and small fruits should prob- 
ably have the fertilizer applied broadcast and worked 
into the soil. The common idea that fertilizer for trees 
should be applied immediately around the trunk, is 



BEST METHODS OF APPLYING FERTILIZERS. 61 

all wrong. The feeding roots of the tree are, in the 
great majority of cases, out beyond the spread of the 
branches, and it is here that the plant food should be 
supplied. 

FIVE GENERAL RULES. 
Special methods of fertilization have been found avail- 
able for several of the minor trucking and vegetable 
crops, and the best methods of applying fertilizer in al- 
most every case must be worked out by the man who is 
best acquainted with conditions, but these general rules 
may be given: 

(1) Where large quantities of fertilizer are applied 
they should be distributed throughout the whole surface 
soil; smaller quantities may best be applied in smaller 
space where the plant roots are sure to find them. 

(2) Readily available fertilizers are best supplied 
when the seed are planted or even after the crop has 
made considerable growth. Those that become slowly 
available should be applied, if practicable, before the 
seed are put into the ground. 

(3) It is better in almost all cases to have the fer- 
tilizer mixed with the soil so as not to be brought into 
contact with the seed, but where small amounts are 
used it is not likely that much harm results from any 
of the ordinary methods of application. 

(4) Two or more applications are profitable, as a rule, 
only when some quickly available fertilizer is used, or 
on loose sandy soils in a wet season. 

(5) Before any fertilizer is applied the soil should be 
put into the best possible condition. 



CHAPTER XII. 

A BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 

THE PROFITABLE use of commercial fertilizers de- 
pends, as has been stated before, largely upon the 
understanding by the farmer of a few fundamental 
principles, and his ability to apply his understanding of 
these principles to his particular conditions. Therefore, 
it may be well at this point to review briefly, even though 
it means some repetition, the essential principles of prof- 
itable fertilization as laid down in the foregoing chap- 
ters. Then, in following chapters, the larger question 
of soil fertility will be taken up and the use of green 
and stable manures briefly discussed. We fertilize pri- 
marily to get profitable crops, but we must also look be- 
yond the present crop to the permanent effects upon the 
soil. This chapter and the next will be devoted to this 
phase of the subject. 

In the first place, it must always be remembered that 
fertilizers are primarily plant foods; that they bear the 
same relation to the plant that corn and oats do to the 
horse, or bread and meat and butter do to the farmer 
himself. In any soil there is enough of all the plant 
foods to supply the needs of very large crops for a great 
many years, but most of these foods are in such form 
that they can not be used by the crops. It is only when 
these foods are dissolved in enough soil water to enable 
the plants to draw them up through the minute root- 
hairs by which they feed, that they can be utilized at 



A BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 63 

all. The farmer who applies fertilizers to a soil, then, 
simply puts food for his crops where it can be reached 
by them. And to be of any value, this food must be in 
a form in which the plants can utilize it. 

THE THREE PLANT FOODS WE BUY, 

The three plant foods usually applied are nitrogen, 
which goes largely to the development of leaf and stem; 
phosphoric acid, which is useful chiefly in promoting 
the development of fruit and grain, and potash, which 
aids in the production of starch and gives vigor to stem 
and foliage and perfection to flower and fruit. 

The most commonly used fertilizing materials supply- 
ing nitrogen are cottonseed meal, nitrate of soda, tank- 
ake, dried blood, fish scrap, and stable and green ma- 
nures. Phosphoric acid is chiefly derived from acid 
phosphate, floats, basic slag, and bone meal. Potash is 
bought chiefly in the form of muriate, sulphate and 
kainit, and is also obtained in considerable quantities 
from wood ashes and tobacco refuse. A fertilizer con- 
taining all these elements of plant food is known as a 
"complete" fertilizer. 

WHAT LIMITS THE CROPS. 

It must be remembered always that the growth of any 
crop is limited by the supply of that plant food which 
is least abundant, and no surplus of any one element can 
make up for a deficiency of another. Indeed, the growth 
of the crop is limited by the lack of moisture in the 
soil to make available the plant food there present, of- 



64 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

tener than by any actual lack of the elements which the 
plants feed on. Other limiting factors of crop growth 
may be too much moisture in the soil, soil acidity, or 
poor physical condition which does not permit of proper 
aeration of the soil and of the necessary development of 
bacterial life. 

It is because they correct these difficulties in the soil 
that stable and green manures are so much needed on 
most Southern lands. And it is for the same reason that 
the same amount of plant food applied in these manures 
will usually give far better results than an equal amount 
of more readily available food applied in the form of 
commercial fertilizers. Indeed, it is not too much to say 
that in most cases the greatest need of the soil is a larger 
supply of humus which will give better texture to the 
soil, increasing its moisture-holding capacity and permit- 
ting of freer circulation of the air, and thus enabling the 
development of the soil bacteria which change the ele- 
ments of plant food in the soil to available forms and 
make it possible for the crops to utilize them. 

It is always to be remembered that even when com- 
mercial fertilizers are applied, the ability of the plant 
to use them is governed largely by the condition of the 
soil, and that it is useless to expect the best results from 
any fertilizer on a soil which is improperly drained, 
which is dry or hard, or Vv^hich is insufficiently supplied 
with decaying vegetable matter. The man who wishes 
to use fertilizers economically must, therefore, give first 
attention to the condition of his soil; for until he has it 



A BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 65 

in proper shape, he must inevitably fail to get the best 
results from any fertilizer he may apply. 

ADAPTING THE FERTILIZER TO THE CROP. 

The next thing to consider is the lack of his soil in 
the available plant food needed by the particular crop 
he wishes to grow. And until he has some intelligent 
idea of this, and can therefore determine from a busi- 
ness standpoint what plant foods his crops most need, 
he can not use fertilizers to the greatest profit. 

It may be stated as a general rule that practically all 
Southern soils, except what are known as "rich" bottom 
lands, are deficient in nitrogen. And with the possible 
exception of the alluvial lands of the Mississippi Bottoms 
all will be made more productive by the application of 
phosphoric acid. On the sandy soils of the Atlantic 
Coast region, potash is much needed for most crops, 
while on the clay lands of the Southern hill country 
and on the soils of the lower Mississippi Valley, it seems 
to be needed only for special crops, if at all. 

The high cost of nitrogen and the fact that it is so 
readily lost from the soil, makes it impracticable for the 
farmer to keep up the supply in his land by the pur- 
chase of it in commercial forms. Since it costs about 20 
cents a pound, and a crop of cotton yielding a half bale 
to the acre removes at least 18 pounds, it will be seen 
at once that some other method of keeping up the supply 
of this element must be adopted if the farmer is to make 
a profit on the crops he grows. Fortunately, however, 
by raising leguminous crops he can keep his soil abun- 



66 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

dantly supplied with nitrogen, so that all he will need to 
buy will be a readily available form for special crops or 
for special occasions of crop need. The growing of 
these legume crops is, indeed, of much more importance 
in the long run than is any application of commercial fer- 
tilizera. 

Phosphoric acid must be bought, and in many cases 
in increasing quantities, if Southern soils are ever to 
reach that degree of productivity which may rightfully 
be expected of them. It is probable, however, that by 
filling the soil with humus it will be possible to get this 
phosphoric acid from the raw phosphate rock at a cost 
of less than one-half of what is paid at present for the 
more available form in the acid phosphate. Until the 
soil is supplied with this vegetable matter, however, it 
is not likely that this unavailable form will give paying 
returns. 

Potash should be applied in larger proportions in 
some sections and in much smaller proportions on other 
lands of different type. Indeed, it is probable that on 
many Southern soils it does not pay to apply potash at 
all for any of the staple crops. This, as well as the 
amount and percentage of the other plant foods to be 
applied, is a matter which can be determined only by 
careful experiments on his soil by the farmer himself. 
It is chiefly for this reason that the practice of mixing 
fertilizers at home in such proportions as are needed by 
the crop to be fertilized is to be advised. And this is 
why it is so vitally important for Southern farmers to 



A BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 67 

learn how, not only to judge of the needs of their soil 
as regards plant foods, but also to determine the amount 
of each of the plant foods in a fertilizer and to adapt 
the fertilizer used to their individual needs. 

WHAT THE FARMER MUST LEARN. 

To sum up the whole matter, then, it may be said that 
the farmer who wishes to use fertilizers economically 
must consider first the processes of plant growth and 
nutrition. He must next consider the special part which 
each of the plant foods answers in the development of 
the plant. Then, attention must be given to the compo- 
sition and physical condition of the soil and to the par- 
ticular demands of the crop which is to be fertilized. 
After this, and from a knowledge of these things, the 
adaptation of the fertilizer to the crop must be made. 

All this is a matter involving earnest study and some 
very careful, painstaking work, but it should be far 
easier for the farmer to devote this study and work to 
the solution of his fertilizer problems than for him to 
continue, as so many are doing at present, to spend a 
large per cent of his income for fertilizers, buying these 
fertilizers by guess-work and using them in some cases 
so as only to assist in the depletion of the soil, and thus 
to make farming less profitable and more uncertain with 
each succeeding year. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
KEEPING UP SOIL FERTILITY. 

IT IS EVIDENT that while the productivity of a soil 
does not depend entirely, or even primarily, upon 
the amount of plant food it contains, yet any system 
of farming that reduces the amount of plant food in the 
soil is bound sooner or later to bring the land down to 
such a low degree of fertility that its cultivation will not 
be profitable. Because the plant food in any soil is 
largely in an insoluble form and so must be made slowly 
available for the use of the crops, it follows that it is 
impossible to absolutely exhaust it of plant food. But 
it is quite possible to reduce the store of available food 
to such a small quantity that paying crops can not be 
made, even though there is really enough in the soil to 
last for hundreds of years. While the farmer, then, 
will give due consideration to the humus supply and 
the physical condition of his land, he must also, if he 
wishes to maintain its fertility, have regard to the total 
amounts of plant foods it contains. And while there 
is in the average soil enough of the different elements 
needed by crops to last for hundreds of years, it is not 
the part of wisdom to greatly reduce this total supply, 
especially when it is remembered that under all circum- 
stances, by far the larger part of what is present in the 
soil will be in such form that it cannot be used by the 
crop. 

For these reasons, the good farmer will try to add to 



KEEPING UP SOIL FERTILITY. 69 

his soil as much of the three limiting plant foods as his 
crops remove from it. 

WHAT CROPS TAKE FROM THE SOIL. 
Some very interesting figures along this line might be 
given, and many farmers will doubtless be surprised 
when they compare the amounts of plant food applied 
in the fertilizers they commonly use with the quantities 
that are removed by the crops grown. In the average 
crop of corn grown in the United States— 29.4 bushels 
to the acre, and estimating 4,000 pounds of stover- 
there are 73.74 pounds of nitrogen, 23.96 pounds of 
phosphoric acid, and 63.06 pounds of potash. In the 
average wheat crop— 13.95 bushels, and estimating the 
straw at 2,300 pounds— there are 33.32 pounds of ni- 
trogen, 10.2 pounds phosphoric acid, and 16.83 pounds 
of potash. In the average cotton crop — 190 pounds of 
lint and 414 pounds of seed, not counting stalks and 
leaves — there are 13.57 pounds of nitrogen, 5.45 pounds 
phosphoric acid, and 5.7 pounds potash. 

Compare these figures with the amounts of plant food 
usually supplied in commercial fertilizers. The man 
who uses two hundred pounds of 8 — 2 — 2 goods on 
his cotton crop, applies four pounds of nitrogen, six- 
teen pounds phosphoric acid, and four pounds potash 
to an acre of land. That is, if he raises an average crop 
of cotton, he removes over three times as much nitrogen, 
one-third as much phosphoric acid, and more than as much 
potash as he supplies to the land. When, as is often 
the case, no other provision is made to keep up the sup- 



70 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

plies of plant food, is it any wonder that many lands grow 
steadily poorer and produce smaller crops with each 
succeeding year? In fact, if the matter is considered 
simply from this standpoint, the wonder would be that 
all soils were not speedily brought down to a state 
where they would be unable to produce profitable yields. 
It is to be remembered, however, that very few crops 
are entirely removed from the land on which they grow, 
and that in any well considered system of farming there 
is a constant return to the soil of the products taken 
from it. Every good crop rotation is planned with this 
idea of returning to the soil just as much as possible of 
the plant food removed from it by the crops. And this 
means that in a good farm rotation the growing of crops 
to feed to live stock is made a leading feature. 

GROWING GOOD CROPS WHILE BUILDING UP THE SOIL, 

If a farmer took away from the land all that he grew 
upon it one year after another, it would be only a ques- 
tion of a few years until any ordinary soil would be 
unable to yield enough to pay him for the labor of mak- 
ing the crop. On the other hand, by judicious rota- 
tion, the feeding of live stock, and the purchase of such 
commercial fertilizers as are actually needed, he may 
continue to build up his land and at the same time grow 
upon it large crops every year. 

The difference in the drain upon the soil by different 
systems of farming is a matter to which every farmer 
must give earnest consideration. The man who sells 
a ton of wheat removes from his land, 47.2 pounds of 



KEEPING UP SOIL FERTILITY. 71 

nitrogen, 17.8 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 12.2 
pounds of potash. At present commercial prices these 
plant foods would cost over $11. On the other hand, 
the man who sells a ton of butter takes from his land 
only a few cents' worth of the essential plant foods. If 
the cotton grower who produces a bale to the acre sold 
both lint and seed from his farm, he would take away 
3 6.2 pounds of nitrogen, 14.3 pounds of phosphoric acid, 
and 15 pounds of potash from each acre of land. If he 
sold the lint only and fed the seed to live stock and 
returned the manure to the land he might expect to give 
liack to the soil at least two-thirds of the plant food 
contained in the seed. In this case he would remove 
only 13.2 pounds of nitrogen, 5.1 pounds of phosphoric 
acid, and 6.5 pounds of potash. 

This loss could easily be made good by growing after 
the cotton a crop of crimson clover to which had been 
applied 100 pounds to the acre of a fertilizer analyzing 
5.1 per cent phosphoric acid and 6.5 per cent potash. In 
other words, the cotton farmer who sells both lint and 
seed off his farm makes a terrific drain upon soil fertil- 
ity, while the farmer who sells only the lint and feeds 
the seed to live stock can, by the use of comparatively 
small quantities of the cheaper plant foods, keep his 
soil constantly improving in fertility. 

ROTATION AND SOIL FERTILITY. 

The matter of keeping up soil fertility is much more 
largely a matter of crop rotation and soil management 
than of the use of commercial fertilizers, although these 



72 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

must be used in any system of farming if the total sup- 
ply of the mineral elements in the soil is not to be re- 
duced. To put it briefly, the maintenance of soil fer- 
tility depends in the first place upon the kind of farming 
that is followed, the crops that are sold from the land, 
and the returns made to it from the feeding of these 
crops to live stock, and only secondarily and to a very 
much smaller degree, upon the fertilizers that are sup- 
plied to the various crops grown upon it. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HOW GREEN MANURES BENEFIT THE SOIL. 

HY IT IS NOT the part of wisdom to depend en- 




tirely upon commercial fertilizers to keep up the 
fertility of the soil, has already been explained; 
and the necessity of green and stable manures has been 
pointed out. These are valuable not only for the plant 
food they contain, but even more for the effect they have 
upon the texture of the soil, and for the humus they add 
to it. Since a liberal supply of humus in the soil is 
necessary to enable any crop to do its best, or to enable 
any fertilizer to give the best results, it is easily seen that 
no farmer who would keep his land constantly growing 
better — as every farmer should — can afford to neglect 
either green or stable manures. 

Green plants are usually about 80 per cent water. The 
dry matter is mostly cellulose or starch, and cellulose 
and starch are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, 
which the plant obtains from the air and water and of 
which there are unlimited supplies. This means that 
when a grain or grass crop is turned down, there is added 
to the soil no more of the three plant foods commonly 
lacking than was already in it. Yet every farmer knows 
that most land is greatly improved by having vegetable 
matter of any kind mixed with it. 

GREEN CROPS MAKE PLANT FOODS MORE AVAILABLE. 

The reasons for this are largely to be found in what 
has been said about humus and the physical condition of 
6 



74 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

the soil; for these green crops as they decay supply the 
soil with humus; enable it to hold more moisture with- 
out becoming too wet for plants to do well; retain this 
moisture better in a dry time; lighten the soil, thus per- 
mitting of a freer circulation of air; furnish food for the 
soil bacteria to feed on, and by improving the texture of 
the soil, enable the roots of the crops that may be grow- 
ing on it to gather larger supplies of food. That is, while 
the turned-down green crop does not add to the sup- 
plies of plant food in the soil, it makes it easier for the 
growing crops to get what is there. 

It does this, not only by keeping the soil in better 
tilth and holding more moisture for the use of the plants, 
but also, as has been said, by furnishing more food for 
the soil bacteria. These exceedingly minute plants are 
what causes the vegetable matter in the soil to decay. 
They draw the food for their growth from it, and as they 
die leave this food in such shape that it can be dissolved 
in the soil water and used by the crops planted on the 
land. Their growth and death also help to make more 
available some of the other plant foods, since as has been 
stated, it is only when this food is in such form that it 
can be dissolved by the soil moisture that it can be of 
service to the farmer. 

LEGUMES ADD NITROGEN AS WELL AS HELP BACTERIA. 

But while the crop of rye or grass does not add to the 
supply of nitrogen, phosphoric acid or potash in the soil, 
there are some crops that do add largely to its supply of 
nitrogen. These crops are what we call legumes, and 



HOW GREEN MANURES BENEFIT THE SOIL. 75 

include all the clovers, alfalfa, the vetches, all our 
beans and peas, the lupines and other crops less well 
known. The different locust trees and the red-bud are 
also legumes. 

These legumes get much of the nitrogen used in their 
growth from the air, so that when they are returned to 
the land on which they grew, or even when only the roots 
and stubble are left, there is a distinct increase in the 
soil's supply of nitrogen. This nitrogen is obtained from 
the air by the aid of certain bacteria which live upon the 
roots of the plants in question. The bacteria have the 
power of taking the nitrogen needed for the growth di- 
rectly from the air in the inter-soil spaces, and as they 
die, this nitrogen may be used by the plant upon which 
they are growing. 

NODULES INDICATE NITROGEN-GATHERING BACTERIA. 

By pulling up a healthy cowpea or clover plant, little 
lumps, or nodules, may be seen on its roots. These nod- 
ules are the homes of millions of these nitrogen-gathering 
bacteria, and by their size and number one can form 
an idea of the work the crop is doing in adding to the 
nitrogen contents of the soil. 

Sometimes none of these nodules will be found, for 
the bacteria that live on the various plants do not seem 
to be present in all soils. When these bacteria are not 
present — that is, when the nodules are not found on the 
roots of the crop, it seldom thrives as it should and, 
of course, does not add to the nitrogen in the soil. 



76 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

WHY WE INOCULATE LAND, 

Different kinds of bacteria live on different plants; 
and one legume may be well supplied with these nodules 
on. land where some other crop shows no trace of them. 
Thus the bacteria that live on the roots of the cowpea 
seem to be abundant all over the South, while those that 
grow on crimson clover are not present in many soils. In 
such cases, it is necessary to "inoculate" the soil — that 
is, to supply it with these bacteria, before the crop can be 
of value to the farmer as a gatherer of nitrogen from the 
air. This inoculation may be done by spreading soil from 
a field where the bacteria are known to exist over the 
land in which they seem to be lacking, or by the use of 
"cultures" of these bacteria. These cultures are simply 
preparations, usually of some jelly-like substance, in 
which the bacteria have been grown in great numbers. 
Ordinarily, the soil method of inoculation is the surest 
and best. 

SUMMARY. 

Green manures, then, are crops of any kind returned 
to the soil on which they grew. They may, of course, 
be applied to other soils, and they may be allowed to 
mature or to die before being mixed with the soils, or be 
used while still green. They (1) supply humus, (2) im- 
prove the texture of the soil, and (3) in the case of the 
legumes, add to it nitrogen, which is taken from the air. 



CHAPTER XV. 

WHEN AND HOW TO USE GREEN MANURES. 

APART of almost every crop that is grown is re- 
turned directly to the soil and thus becomes a green 
manure; but the crops grown especially for this 
purpose are comparatively few. Those most commonly 
grown in the South are cowpeas, crimson clover, bur 
clover, and rye. In some sections red clover is also a 
highly-prized green manuring crop, and large areas of 
lespedeza — Japan clover — are also utilized this way. 
Other winter crops sometimes used are the vetches, tur- 
nips, and wheat or oats. Of these, the cowpea and Japan 
clover are summer-growing crops, red clover is a biennial 
— that is, lasts two years, — the others are winter-grow- 
ing crops. 

THE BEST WAY TO USE MANURE CROPS. 

All of these crops are valuable for feed; and as a gen- 
eral proposition, it may be said that any crop that can 
be profitably fed to live stock will pay better when so 
used than when returned directly to the soil. This is be- 
cause when the crop is fed the feed value is, of course, 
secured, and there may be saved in the manure from 60 
to 85 per cent of the plant food that was originally in 
the crop. This plant food, too, is usually in a more read- 
ily available condition for the use of the following crop 
in the manure than in the turned-under crop. 

The ideal way, then, to utilize crops grown for manur- 
ing is to feed them to stock and to return the manure to 



78 FERTILIZING FOR FROFIT. 

the soil, thus securing their full feeding value and from 
two-thirds to three-fourths of their original fertilizer 
value. 

While this is true as a general proposition, however, 
the fact remains that it will often pay to return a crop 
directly to the land on which it was grown — that is, to 
plow it down or otherwise incorporate it with the soil be- 
fore or after maturity. The cases when this is advisable 
will mostly fall under three heads. 

WHEN IT PAYS TO PLOW UNDER A GREEN CROP. 

The first is when the crop is so light that the expense 
of harvesting it would amount to more than its value as a 
feedstuff. Such cases are very common on the poorer lands 
of the South. Many old fields can be most economically 
started on the way of improvement by sowing a crop of 
cowpeas, for example, in the spring, fertilizing this crop 
with phosphoric acid and potash if these elements are 
needed, working it into the soil when mature, and fol- 
lowing it with a winter crop, like rye or crimson clover, 
to be turned under also before anything is removed from 
the soil. This is, however, a plan to be recommended 
only on very poor lands much lacking in humus, or under 
other exceptional circumstances. 

The second case in which the direct application of a 
crop as a green manure is to be advised, is where the land 
needs the humus and there is little chance of its being 
returned to the soil if the crop is removed. If the owner 
of the land, for example, has not the stock to which to 
feed a crop of cowpeas and can only sell the hay and buy 



WHEN AND HOW TO USE GREEN MANURES. 79 

commercial fertilizers to feed his land, it may pay him 
to plow the crop under, even though he could sell it 
and buy more plant food in other forms after getting pay 
for the extra work of saving and marketing the crop- 
This scarcity of live stock to consume the crops grown 
makes green manuring a necessity in many cases where 
it would be much better if the crop could be first fed. 

A third case is where if the fertilizing crop is left to 
mature it will be in the way of a succeeding crop. For 
example, if a cover crop of rye is to be followed by cot- 
ton, it may be necessary to plow the rye under before it 
makes growth enough to make its harvesting profitable. 
A similar problem is often presented with winter-growing 
crops, such as rye and crimson clover, that while useful 
for feed to a certain extent, have also some features that 
make their use objectionable. Rye is an excellent crop 
for cutting and feeding green; but if it must be made into 
hay, it will usually pay better to plow it down. Crimson 
clover makes good hay if cut at exactly the right stage; 
but if allowed to get too ripe, it may be a dangerous feed, 
especially for horses, and in such cases, is best plowed 
undef. 

SOME POINTS TO OBSERVE IN USING GREEN MANURES. 

The great value of green manures in adding to the 
humus of the soil has been spoken of; but they some- 
times produce injurious effects also and, like other fer- 
tilizers, must always be used with reference to the crop 
that is to follow their application. 

The plowing under of a larger amount of vegetable mat- 



80 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

ter as a preparation for, or a short time before, the sow- 
ing of wheat or oats in the fall, is never to be advised. 
The undecayed mass makes the soil "puffy" and unsettled 
and prevents the formation of that fine, firm seed bed 
which these crops so much like. Indeed, it is nearly al- 
ways better to have green manures mixed with the soil 
in time for them to have p^artially decayed, at least, be- 
fore the succeeding crop is planted. This is not always 
practicable, however, and with some crops., corn for ex- 
ample, is not of great importance. The plowing under of 
a heavy crop of green vegetation often results in too 
much acidity in the soil when it begins to decay. For this 
reason it is usually better when a rank crop is to be 
turned down to allow it to fully mature. Soil acidity 
produced by this may be corrected, however, by giving 
the soil a top dressing of lime after the crop has been 
plowed down. Green manures are most profitably used 
as a preparation for such gross-feeding and humus-need- 
ing crops as corn, or for those, like the Irish potato, and 
other root crops, that need plenty of soil moisture, do 
not mind a little sourness in the soil, and are sometimes 
injured by the application of stable manures. 

COVER CROPS FOR GREEN MANURING. 

The crops most generally profitable as green manures 
are those that are grown during the winter to protect the 
soil, and are then turned down in the spring in time to 
be followed by cotton, corn or other hoed crops. Rye, 
for example, is most profitably used, as a rule, by pastur- 
ing or soiling in the early spring and then turning under; 



WHEN AND HOW TO USE GREEN MANURES. 81 

-while it is often more profitable to plow a crop of crim- 
son clover in for the benefit of the corn crop that is to 
follow than to try to make hay of it. A summer-growing 
crop, such as the cowpea, should, on the other hand, be 
first used as a feed, unless the land is very poor indeed, 
or there is no other chance of getting the humus the crop 
contains into the soil. 

To sum up then: (1) The most profitable green manur- 
ing crops, as a general rule, are those that grow during 
the winter and are turned down in the spring; (2) It is 
usually better, when practicable, to let a crop mature 
than to plow it in green; (3) Large quantities of green 
matter turned under sometimes sour the soil and are al- 
ways objectionable just before seeding oats or wheat; (4) 
Where a crop can be profitably saved for feed and the 
manure returned to the land this should always be done. 



CHAPTER XVL 

MAKING AND CARING FOR STABLE MANURE. 

THE THREEFOLD value of stable manures — (1) in 
improving the texture of the soil, (2) in promoting 
bacterial activity, and (3) in adding to the available 
plant food in the soil — has already been spoken of, and 
all that was said in the last chapter about the benefits of 
green manures applies with even more force to stable 
manures. 

Manures contain nothing that was not in the feed the 
animals consumed; but these feeds have been changed^ 
both in their physical condition and their chemical com- 
position, by the processes of digestion, so that they are, 
as a rule, more quickly effective and more marked in 
their effects than green manures. Stable manures, in- 
deed, may be said to be the basis of all really scientific 
and practical fertilization. There are, of course, excep- 
tions to this rule — for example, they should not be ap- 
plied directly to some crops — but it is a safe general 
proposition. The general farmer should use commercial 
fertilizers as supplements to his home-produced manure^ 
and not as substitutes for it. 

STABLE MANURES THE CHEAPEST FERTILIZERS. 

The economy of feeding a great part of the crops grown 
on the land to live stock, of getting the full feeding value 
of these crops and then of returning from two-thirds 
to three-fourths of the fertilizing elements in them to the 
soil in a readily available and permanently helpful form,. 



MAKING AND CARING FOR STABLE MANURE. 83 

must be apparent to any one. Then, when it is remember- 
ed that cultivation always has a tendency to reduce the 
humus supply in the soil, that this supply must be kept 
up if the producing ability of the land is to be maintained 
or increased, and that commercial fertilizers do practi- 
cally nothing toward keeping up this supply, the folly of 
any one's engaging in general farming without paying 
due attention to both the production and the care of 
stable manures would seem to be too evident to be over- 
looked. 

WHAT STABLE MANURES CONTAIN. 

As already stated, the value of the manure produced 
by an animal depends upon the feed the animal has had. 
There is in the manure that part of the feed materials 
which the animal has failed to assimilate and the 
waste products of its body that have been thrown off and 
expelled with this unused material. 

For this reason stable manures vary constantly and 
considerably in composition. The analyses usually pub- 
lished are averages of a great many, and the composition 
of any particular lot of manure may be very different 
from that indicated by these averages. The thing for the 
feeder to remember is, that feeding with "rich," nutri- 
tious feeds will produce manure rich in plant foods, while 
feeding with feeds low in nutriment can only produce 
manure of poor quality. 

The following table gives some analyses which may be 
taken as representing a fair average of the composition 
of stable manures: 



84 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

Per ct. Per ct. Per ct. 
Nitrogen. Phos ac. Pot. 

Cattle, solid, 0.29 0.17 0.10 

Cattle, urine, 0.58 0.49 

Cattle, mixed, 0.44 0.16 0.40 

Horse, solid, 0.44 0.17 0.35 

Horse, urine, 1.55 .... 1.50 

Horse, mixed, 0.58 0.28 0.53 

Swine, mixed, 0.45 0.19 O.60 

Sheep, solid, 0.55 0.31 0.15 

Barnyard, mixed, 0.49 0.32 0.43 

Hen 1.10 0.85 0.56 

In other words, a ton of average horse manure contains 
plant food worth about $3.18, and a ton of cow manure 
contains about $2.36 worth. 

Every practical farmer knows, however, that for most 
crops and on most soils a ton of manure is worth much 
more, and it has already been explained why this is so. 

HOW MANURE IS WASTED, 

Notwithstanding the great value of stable manure and 
the very limited supply on most farms, it is unfortunate- 
ly true that a large per cent of the plant food in it is 
wasted instead of being returned to the soil, and in many 
cases much of the humus-forming and bacteria-aiding 
benefit that might be obtained from it is lost. 

Whenever manure is left exposed to the weather the 
soluble plant foods in it are quickly washed out by rains. 
If it is on the land where it is needed, this does not mat- 
ter, as the plant foods will be taken into the soil; but if 
the manure is lying in a hard-packed barnyard that 
drains into a gully or creek, the best part of it is largely 



MAKING AND CARING FOR STABLE MANURE. 85 

lost. Many farmers imagine that the manure left by their 
stock on the pasture is of little benefit, while the truth is 
that they probably get a much larger proportionate ben- 
efit from it than from that which is dropped in the 
stables. This is certainly true if this latter is thrown out 
under the eaves of the barn or allowed to get hot and dry 
and "fire-fang." Few farmers have any real idea of the 
great loss which occurs from their careless method of 
handling manure. "Experiments made by Roberts show 
that when horse manure is thrown in a loose pile and 
subjected to the joint action of leaching and weathering, 
it may lose in six months nearly 60 per cent of its most 
valuable fertilizing constituents." When the liquid 
manure is wasted, as is so often the case, fully two-thirds 
of the nitrogen and a large part of the potash in the ma- 
nure are lost. 

Whenever manure is allowed to "heat" until the sharp, 
acrid scent of escaping ammonia can be noticed, the 
farmer is losing money again, for the most valuable plant 
food in it is escaping into the air. In fact, whenever de- 
composition sets in, there is likely to be some loss of 
ammonia. The mixing of lime or ashes with manure also 
tends to liberate the ammonia in it, and should never be 
practiced. 

WHY MANURE SHOULD BE SPREAD AS MADE. 

For these reasons, the sooner manure can be applied 
to the soil after it is made, as a general rule, the better. 
For some crops, it may pay to keep the manure until it 
is well rotted before using it; but for ordinary farm crops 



86 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

it does not pay, and there is always more or less loss of 
plant food. Where it can be done, the manure should be 
taken from the stables to the field every day. Where chis 
is impossible, the best thing is to keep it tightly packed, 
with plenty of bedding under the feet of the stock, al- 
ways having it moist enough to prevent heating. If it 
must be kept in heaps, they should be rather low and 
tJ.at, so as to offer as little exposure to the air as possible, 
and should be kept very moist. The use of absorbents 
in the stalls to take up the liquid manure is a necessity if 
its full value is to be obtained. Plenty of bedding is de- 
manded wherever concrete gutters and floors are not 
used, and the use of "floats" or acid phosphate in the 
stalls also helps to retain the urine — the most valuable 
part of the manure — and also to balance it up in the ele- 
ment in which it is most lacking, phosphoric acid. Ex- 
cellent bedding materials are straw, leaves, cut-up corn 
stalks, cottonseed hulls — anything, in fact, that will ab- 
sorb and hold the liquid manure. 

As a general thing, the less handling that can be given 
the manure and the quicker it can be put on the land 
after it is made, the better. Aside from the use of plenty 
of bedding and some such absorbent as those here re- 
commended, it seldom pays to "compost" manures — ex- 
ceptions will be noted in the next chapter — and the "for- 
mulas" for mixing manure with various chemicals, etc., 
may be grouped together as frauds. All are unprofitable 
and many positively injurious and the wise farmer will 
not waste time, labor and often plant food, by repeated 
and unnecessary handling of his manure. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
HOW AND WHEN TO APPLY STABLE MANURE. 

THE CROPS on which stable manure gives the most 
marked immediate returns are those that have a 
strong root system and that require comparatively 
large amounts of nitrogen. Crops that need especially 
large amounts of water during the summer season, when 
it is likely to be hot and dry, are also greatly benefitted 
by the use of plenty of stable manure. The corn crop 
comes in both these classes and is a favorite, and a decid- 
edly good, place to use the farm's supply of stable manure. 
But the effects of the judicious application of stable 
manure are so generally beneficial that it is easier to say 
where it should not be used than where it should. 

WHERE NOT TO USE STABLE MANURE. 

It is poor economy, then, to apply stable manure to 
leguminous crops, because it is richest in nitrogen, the 
element which it is the special mission of these crops to 
get from the air. An exception to this rule may be the 
case where, on poor land, stable manure is of great ser- 
vice in getting a start, especially of alfalfa; but even here 
it is likely that in most cases it would pay to inoculate 
the soil and to use the stable manure elsewhere. 

Fresh stable manure should not be applied to root 
crops — beets, carrots, etc., or to potatoes. It tends to 
make the root crops grow rough and forked, and favors 
the growth of scab upon the potatoes. The manuring of 
the land is an excellent preparation for any of these crops 



88 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

but the manure should be put on several months before 
they are planted — the fall before is a good time. 

For such vegetables as lettuce, cauliflower, etc., where 
a very rapid growth is desired, manure may be used in 
connection with other fertilizers, but it should always be 
well rotted before it is applied and thoroughly mixed with 
the soil. It probably pays to compost the manure with 
sods and sand for these crops, and for potted plants, 
greenhouse beds, and so on; but aside from this, compost- 
ing is usually a waste of labor if it is possible to apply the 
manure direct. 

MANURE NOT A PERFECT RATION FOR MOST CROPS, 

A heavy application of manure to oats or wheat may 
cause too great a growth of straw, if it is not supplement- 
ed with other fertilizers containing phosphoric acid and 
potash. Indeed, manure is for most crops on most soils 
a very badly balanced ration, and needs to be evened up 
with liberal supplies of the mineral elements. On most 
soils, however, the manure is of such great benefit as a 
supplier of humus and a promoter of bacterial activity, 
that it should be the main dependence as a fertilizer, the 
commercial fertilizers being used as needed to balance it. 

In the stock-raising sections stable manure alone is 
often depended on to keep up the soil fertility, with the 
result that the soil is gradually depleted of phosphoric 
acid. This is incomparably better, however, than the 
common Southern practice of depending upon commercial 
fertilizers and exhausting the soil's supply of humus and 
nitrogen. 



HOW AND WHEN TO APPLY STABLE MANURE. 89 

HOW TO APPLY MANURE. 

Manure should in most cases — in practically all cases, 
it is safe to say — be applied broadcast. The scattering 
of small amounts in the drill or row is a wasteful and 
unprofitable practice. If enough is put in to be of any 
marked value as a source of plant food, there is danger, 
unless it is very fine, that it may dry out and "fire" the 
crop if a drouth comes. If the manure is made fine and 
mixed with the soil, it will decay and aid greatly in the 
holding of moisture. This fining of manure is another 
point that needs emphasizing. A big lump of manure is 
of comparatively little use to the plants, because the 
plant food in it is held so that it cannot be dissolved by 
the soil water. It is a mere clod, and it Is possible for 
a plant to starve among the richest sort of clods. 

These, then, are the two great points to be remem- 
bered in applying manure: 

(1) It should be made as fine as possible, and (2) 
mixed thoroughly and uniformly through the soil. 

The manure spreader has made it much easier to get 
the manure out on the soil, and has enabled it to be put 
there in much better shape than was possible by hand. 
Manure should never be piled in small heaps in the 
field, as it is sure to lose much of its nitrogen when left 
in this shape. When taken to the field the proper thing 
is to spread it on the land at oBce. 

WHERE MANURE IS LIKELY TO GIVE BEST RETURI^S. 
As to where the manure should be used, it is merely a 
•[uestion of the best place, since it is needed nearly 
7 



90 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

everywlieie and practically on all our staple crops. The 
corn field ih one of the best places; the cotton field will 
be greatly profited by it; it may be spread thinly as a 
top dressing in the winter on grain and grass fields and 
made to yield great returns; it is needed in the orchard, 
in the garden, and on the lawn. 

All soils seem to profit by it, too. While its effects are 
most marlif^d on soils lacking in nitrogen and on those of 
a tight clayey nature, it gives good returns even on rich 
alluvial soils and on newly cleared forest lands. 

Most Southern farmers, will however, probably find it 
most profitable to broadcast their manure for the corn 
and cotton crop; and to use it in the garden and on truck" 
ing crops. When the soil is what is usually called "rich" 
— that is, well supplied with nitrogen — it may produce 
too great a growth of stalk and leaves if used alone, but 
this can always be counteracted by the addition of phos- 
phoric acid and, on soils needing it, potash for grain crops 
or cotton, and by phosphoric acid and potash for fruits, 
potatoes tiu(i root crops. 

No othev fertilizer is so much needed by most Southern 
■soils, and noi until stable manure, rather than commer- 
cial fertilizers, is looked upon as the great essential to 
the maintenance of a fertile soil, will it be possible to eco- 
nomically bnild up the waste lands of the South, For 
this reason it is the part of wisdom for the farmer to 
make as much manure as he can, to take the best pos- 
sible care of it so as to prevent the waste of any of the 
fertility it contains, and to apply it to the soil as fast as 
is convenipnt so that the crops may be using it. 




CHAPTER XVIII. 
THE PROFITABLE USE OF LIME. 

HTLE IT is common to speak of lime as a fertile 
izer, it is in reality seldom used to supply any 
actual lack of calcium, the plant food which it 
contains. Most soils contain enough of this element for 
all the needs of ordinary crops. The true purposes of 
lime usually are to correct soil acidity and to improve the 
physical condition of the soil. This latter is accomplished 
on clay soils by flocculation, or the breaking apart of the 
soil particles; while in sandy soil the lime tends to bind 
the larger soil grains together and thus increases the 
moisture-holding capacity of the soil. Lime also aids in 
the nitrification of humus compounds in the soil, and 
helps to release potash so that it may be used by the 
plants. 

It will thus be seen that lime may do great good or 
great harm, as it is used with judgment or at hazard. 
Where it is used solely to make more available the plant 
food already in the soil and is thus made a sort of substi- 
tute for rational fertilization, the effect of its work in 
making more available the nitrogen and potash in the 
soil must, in the long run, be to deplete the soil, and after 
a few years of better crops, to reduce its productive ca- 
pacity. Such use as this gave rise to the old saying, 
''Lime makes the father rich and the son poor." 
WHERE LIME IS NEEDED. 
Used, however, at intervals of four or five years, and 
in only sufficient quantities to keep the soil sweet, to 



92 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

promote bacterial activity and to assist in keeping the 
land in good tilth, lime may pay handsome profits to 
the user. There is this to be remembered in all cases, 
however: It does not pay to use lime often or in large 
quantities, unless the humus supply of the soil is kept up. 
This means that the lime should be used in a sort of ro- 
tation with green or stable manures. 

Lime is needed to correct soil acidity on large areas of 
Southern lands. The growth of such weeds as sorrel, the 
crowding out of the tame grasses by broomsedge, the 
failure of alfalfa or the clovers to grow, are often indica- 
tions of acidity. The simplest test is to take a piece of 
blue litmus paper, moisten a batch of soil thoroughly and 
leave the litmus paper in contact with it for an hour or 
so. If the paper turns pink, it is safe to say that the soil 
needs lime. 

Lime is generally applied broadcast to the soil, and 
worked lightly into it». It may be sown with a manure 
spreader, or with machines made especially for this 
purpose. 

It is generally applied after the soil has been broken 
and before the crop has been planted, though it may be 
sown directly on grass lands and harrowed in. Fall and 
spring are the usual seasons of application, though when 
a green crop has been turned down, it is often advisable 
to follow it with a top dressing of lime. 

Among the crops that will not thrive on a sour soil 
are alfalfa, the clovers, bluegrass, and the peanut. In- 
deed, few of our staple crops do their best on a soil that 
is to any marked degree acid, and lime has been profitably 



THE PROFITABLE USE OF LIME. 93 

used for corn, tobacco, cotton, the small grains and most 
vegetables. This does not mean that it will pay in every 
case to use lime for these crops. The soil condition is al- 
v^ays the first thing to consider when the question of 
whether or not to use lime comes up. 

THE FORMS IN WHICH LIME MAY BE HAD, 
Lime may be had in various forms — as a carbonate in 
ashes or in ground limestone; as a hydrate in water- 
^ <r slaked lime, and as a caustic lime or oxide in burnt lime- 
i\ . A*'/ ;^ 'Stone, shells or bone. 

l^^^v Sulphate of lime is obtained when gypsum or acid phos- 

phate is used, but this form has little effect on soil acid- 
ity. 

The burnt lime is the most active form, but by using 
larger quantities of other forms the same results may be 
obtained. To equal 100 pounds of caustic lime will re- 
quire about 132 pounds of the hydrated, or water-slaked 
lime, or 178 pounds of ground limestone. Burnt lime 
that is allowed to air-slake, has practically the same com- 
position as the ground limestone. Therefore, if caustic 
lime costs $5 per ton, hydrated lime should sell for about 
$3175, and ground limestone for about $2.85 per ton. 
Experiments indicate that the use of ground limestone 
will have less tendency to burn out the humus supply in 
the soil than will that of caustic lime, though there is 
much yet to learn on this point. 

SEVEN RULES TO REMEMBER. 
A few of the rules to be followed in using lime may 
be briefly given: 



94 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

(1) Lime should be used only when soil conditions 
seem to call for it, and must not be regarded as a sub- 
stitute for fertilizers. 

(2) Lime promotes nitrification and bacterial activity 
in the soil. It will, therefore, tend to dissipate the supply 
of humus in the soil, unless used in connection with green 
or stable manures. 

(3) Lime, or any of the fertilizers in which it is found 
in an active form, should not be mixed with any material 
containing nitrogen, since it tends to set it free and per- 
mits its being wasted. That is, lime, ashes, basic slag, 
should not be mixed with stable manure, cottonseed meal, 
nitrate of soda, or any of the nitrogenous fertilizers. 

(4) It is, as a rule, better to use comparatively small 
quantities — 10 to 15 bushels per acre — once in three or 
four years, than to apply very large quantities at once. 
An exception to this is where the soil is very sour and 
needs correction at once. 

(5) Lime should not be used on Irish potatoes, as it 
favors the development of the scab. 

(6) In applying lime it is only necessary to work it 
very lightly into the surface of the soil. 

7. It should usually be applied a week or two weeks 
before the seed are planted. 



APPENDIX. 



PLANT FOOD IN TYPICAL SOILS. 

%%J ^^^^ t^® chemical analysis of a soil can, at the 

'^ most, give only a general idea of its needs in the 

way of fertilizers, and is by no means — as so 

many people seem to think — an accurate or even a safe 

guide as to its fertilization for any crop, a lev,' typical 

soil analyses may be of interest. 

The following are analyses of Tennessee soils n\ade by 
Prof. Chas. A. Mooers, of the State Experinu-ni Station: 



Type of Soil 



Description 



Dolomite .. 

Dolomite . 

Shale 

Limes tome 
Limestone . 
Limestone . 

Limestone . 



Ridge land, 
poor- 



Valley, rich- 

"Crawfisby" 

Very rich-.. 

Meadow land 

Virgin soil.. 

Subsoil of 
last.. 



Humus 


Nit. 


Phcs 

Aci*f 


Pot 


0-75 


0.08 


o.o.-i 


0. H 


0.76 


0.11 


O.O'S 


0.28 


0.66 


0-07 


0.02 


0.08 


2.42 


0.31 


0.10 


0-85 


1.87 


0.21 


o.^^ 


0-43 


0.74 


0.09 


0.04 


0. ir, ' 


0-27 

1 


0.04 


fs.u, 


♦1. ij 



Lime 

0.09 

0.J7 
0.09 
0.82 
0.56 
0.10 

0.04 



The following compositions of typical soils, gathered 
from various sources will further show the great differ- 
ences in the amount of plant foods contain^^d \u soils of 
various types: 



96 



FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 



Virgin prairie .-. 

Pine forest 

Oak forest 

Averagre 200 fertile 



Hnmus 


Nit. 


Fhos 
Acid 


Pet: 


5-12 
0.47 
2.48 
3.35 


0.38 
0.04 
0.24 
0.29 


3a 
0.13 
0.30 
0.24 


0.45 
16 
0.26 
0.21 



Lime 

0-69 

0. 47 
0.76 
2.16 



The percentage of lime in the last case may seem re- 
markably high, but a Red River valley soil, contained 
in the surface soil, 2.44 per cent of lime and in the sub- 
soil 7.45 per cent. 



WHAT CROPS TAKE FROM THE SOIL. 

The following tables showing the amount of plant foods 
removed from the soil by different crops should prove 
suggestive to the farmer who wishes to maintain the fer- 
tility of his land. For a cotton crop making 100 pounds 
of lint per acre, Professor Massey estimates that the fol- 
lowing amounts of plant food will be required: 





Nit. 


Phos. 
Acid 


Potash 

1.06 
3.09 
3.46 
2.44 
2.55 
0.46 


Lime 


Ro>ta (83 lbs) 


0.76 
3.20 
6.16 
3.45 
6 82 
0.34 


0.43 
1.29 
2.28 
1.30 
2.77 
0.10 


0.53 


Stems (219 lbs.) ..... 

Leives (192 Iba.) 


2.12 

8-52 


Bolls (1351b3.) ._ 

Seed (218 lbs.) 


0.69 
0.55 


Lint (100 lbs.) .... 


0.19 


Total pou.ds pei- aiirj 


20.71 


8.17 


13.06 


12.60 



APPENDIX. 



97 



The following estimates of the drain of other staple 
-crops are taken from Prof. C. W. Burkett's "Soils": 



) 50 bush^^'ls grain . 
Corn r 

) 2 tons stovf-r 

) 25 bijs»i«l3 grain 
Wheat >- 

) iMi tuns siraw -- 



Nit. 


Phos. 
Acid 


40.9 
41.6 
35.4 
17-7 


19. 6 
11.6 

11.8 
3.6 



Potash 

11.2 

c6.0 

7.5 

15.3 



Two hundred bushels of Irish potatoes will remove 
■2 5.6 pounds of nitrogen, 8.4 pounds of phosphoric acid 
and 34.8 pounds of potash; and 200 bushels of sweet po- 
tatoes, 28.8 pounds of nitrogen, 9.6 pounds of phosphoric 
acid, and 44.4 pounds of potash. This is supposing that 
all the tops are left on the land. 

A ton of tomatoes would remove 3.2 pounds of nitro- 
gen, 0.1 pound of phosphoric acid, and 5.4 pounds of pot- 
ash, while in a ton of apples there would be only 2.6 
pounds of nitrogen, 0.2 pound of phosphoric acid, and 3.8 
pounds of potash. 

A ton of well cured cowpea hay will contain 3 9 pounds 
of nitrogen, 10.4 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 29 4 
pounds of potash, a ton of soy bean hay, 46.4 pounds of 
nitrogen, 13.4 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 21.6 pounds 
of potash. The nitrogen in these two crops will, how- 
ever, have been obtained chiefly, or altogether, from the 
air so that only the mineral elements need to be taken 
into account in considering their drain upon the soil. 

It may be said that none of the above figures can be 



98 



FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 



taken as absolute, though all are correct enough to serve 
as guides. No two analyses of any grain or plant are 
likely to be exactly the same, and allowance must always 
be made for this variation. In considering whole crops 
even greater allowances must be made as no two corn 
crops are likely to have exactly the same proportion of 
grain to stover, or no two cotton crops the same propor- 
tion of lint to stalk and leaves. 



WHAT SOME HAY CROPS TOOK AWAY. 

Here is an interesting table showing the amounts of 
plant food in some crops actually grown — roots and tops. 
The first column gives the pounds of dry matter in the 
crop and the following the pounds of the various plant 
foods: 



R< d clover 

White clover . . 

Alsike 

C;imson clover 
TimotVy 



Dry 

maeter 


Nit 


Phos. 
Acid 


Potash 


7,438 


143.7 


39.6 


156-6 


6,349 


173.8 


5 .0 


179.4 


E,910 


U9.8 


36.1 


155.9 


4,604 


108.3 


24.6 


97.9 


6, .81 


47.0 


27.5 


78.0 



Lime 



98.3 
95.6 
86.1 
84.9 
35.5 



This shows the heavy drain the legumes make upon 
the potash, lime, and phosphoric acid in the soil, and also 
their great value to the farmer in gathering nitrogen. 
To supply as much nitrogen as was in this crop of white 
clover would have required 1,085 pounds of nitrate of 
soda; and nearly all this nitrogen was taken from the air. 
The timothy cro)), weighing practically as much, con- 



APPENDIX. 



99 



tained less than one-fourth as much nitrogen, and all 
this was taken from the soil. 

The moral is: To have rich soils and well fed stock, 
apply plenty of the mineral elements to the land and 
grow legumes. 



FERTILIZING MATERIALS IN FEEDING STUFFS. 

The following analyses show the percentages of the 
three important plant foods in some of the most com- 
monly used feedstuffs. Remember what has already been 
said about the constant variability in the analyses of all 
organic substances: 



Gree'i Fodd^^rs 



Com fodder 

Sorsrhum fodder.. 
Rye straw, grten. 

Millet 

Timothy 

Red clover 

White clover 

Alsike 

Crimson clover . . . 

Alfalfa.... . 

Cowpea --. 

Soy bean 

Winter vetch 

Com silage 



Nitrogen 



PotaFh 




100 



FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 



Seeds 



Corn 

Buckwheat 

Soy be^ns 

Cottoneeed 

Sorgrhum seed. 

Data 

Wheat 



Rye. 
Rice 



Nitrogen 


Phos. Acid 


Potash 


1.82 


0.70 


0.40 


1.44 


0.44 


0.21 


5.30 


1.87 


1.99 


3.13 


1.27 


1.17 


1.48 


0.81 


0.42 


2.06 


0.82 


0.62 


2.35 


0.89 


0-61 


1.76 


0.82 


0.54 


1.08 


0.18 


0.09 



By— Products 



Corncobs--- 

Gluten meal 

Wheat bran 

Wheat middlings. 

Rice bran 

Rice polish 

Cottonseed meal.. 
Cottonseed hulls . 



0.50 
5-03 
2.67 
2.63 
0.71 
1.97 
6.97 
0.69 



0.06 
0-33 
2.89 
0.95 
0.29 
2.67 
2.88 
0.25 



0.60 
0.05 
1.61 
0.63 
0.24 
0.71 
1.87 
1.02 



APPENDIX. 



101 



ANALYSES OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS. 

This table gives average compositions of the most com- 
monly used fertilizing materials: 



Materials 


Percent 
Nitrogen 


Percent 
Phos Acid 


Percent 
Potasa 


Nitrate of Boda 


15. 5 to 16 
19 to 20. 5 
12 to 14 






Sulphate of ammonia- . . 




Dried blood, high-grade 




Concentrated tankage - . 


11 to 12. 5 


1 to 2 




Dry fish scrap 


7 to 9 


6 to 8 




Cottonseed meal --. 


6.2to 7.2 


2 to 3 


1.5to2 


Phosphate rock 




26 to 32 




Acid phosphate 




12 to 16 




Bone black 




32 to 36 




Ground bone .. - -- 


2.5to 4.5 


20 to 25 




Dissolved bone 


2 to 3 


1 to 17 




Thomas slag 




18 to 23 




Muriateof potash - 


50 


Sulphate of potash .... .. 






48 lo 50 


Kainit .. . 






12.5 


Sylvinite 


16 to 20 


Cotton hull ashes .. _ 




7to 9 


20 to 30 


Wood ashes, un!eached _ . . . . 




Ito 2 

Ito 1.5 


2 to 8 


Wood ashes, leached . 


Ito 2 


Tobacco stems 


2 to 3 


3 to 5 


5 to 8 



The composition of some of these substances is quite 
uniform. One buying muriate of potash, for example, 
counts on 50 per cent actual potash; nitrate of soda is 
expected to analyze 15.5 per cent nitrogen; a 16 per cent 



102 



FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 



acid phosphate can be had anywhere. But when organic 
substances, — cottonseed meal, tobacco refuse, dried blood, 
etc., — are considered, there are likely to be wide vari- 
ations in their compositions. A guaranteed analysis of 
these materials should always be insisted on. 



VALUE OF MANURE PRODUCED BY LIVE STOCK. 

The Cornell Experiment Station estimates that the dif- 
ferent farm animals will produce manure as follows: 





Per 1,000 Pounds 


3. Live Weight 


Animal 


Amount 
per day 


Value 
per day 


Value 
per year 


Value 
per ton 


Sheep 


34.1 lbs. 
67.8 lbs. 
83. 6 lbs. 
74.1 lbs. 
48.8 lbs. 


7.2c 
6.2 
16.7 
8.0 
7.6 


$26.80 
22.63 
60.95 
28.20 
27.74 


88.30 


Calves 


2.18 


Pigs --- 


3.29 


Cows .. 


2.02 


Horses 


2.21 







These figures are, of course, only approximate or sug- 
gestive, as the value of the manure produced by any 
animal depends upon the feed it receives. 



COMPOSITION OF FARM MANURES. 

The following analyses of farm manures are taken from 
Prof. W, F. Massey's "Practical Farming." Like all 
other analyses of organic substances, it must be remem- 
bered that they represent only the samples analyzed by 
one chemist, or else are averages of several analyses. It 



APPENDIX. 



103 



is seldom that any two samples of manure will have the 
same analysis, and since the manure is only the unas- 
similated parts of the feed mixed with the waste prod- 
ucts of the body, it is easy to see why this is so. This 
will explain the constantly varying analyses given for 
manurial products, and also explain why an animal poorly 
fed does not produce as much or as valuable manure as 
one fed on nutritious feeds: 



Nitrogen 



Cattle excrement, solid, fresh - 

Cattle urine, fresh 

Hen manure, fresh 

Horse dung, solid 

Horse uri^e 

Human manure .- - .. 

Human urine 

Pigeon, dry 

Sbeep dung, solid 

Sheep crine, fresh - 

Swine dung, old - 

Barnyard manure, average 



0.29 
0.58 
1.10 
0.44 
1.55 
1.00 
0-60 
3.20 
0.55 
1.95 
0.60 
0.49 



Phos. 
Acid 



0.17 

0.85 
0.17 

1.09 
0.17 
1.90 
0.31 
0.01 
0.41 
0.32 



Potash 



0.10 
0.49 
0.56 
0.35 
1.50 
0.25 
0.15 
1-00 
1.15 
2.26 
0.13 
0.43 



104 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

TEN SAMPLE MIXTURES THAT ANY FARMER CAN MAKE. 

The following list of fertilizer mixtures that may easily 
be put up at home, together with their analyses, may 
prove helpful for ready reference and suggestive of other 
combinations: 

(1) Cottonseed meal 1,000 pounds 

Acid phosphate (16 per cent) . . 1,000 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 9.2 5 per cent; nitrogen^ 
3.1 per cent; potash, 0.75 per cent. 

(2) Cottonseed meal 2 parts 

Acid phosphate 1 part 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 7 per cent; nitrogen, 4.2 
per cent; potash, 1 per cent. 

(3) Cottonseed meal 1,000 pounds 

Acid phosphate 850 pounds 

Muriate of potash 150 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 8 per cent; nitrogen, 3.1 
per cent; potash, 4.5 per cent. 

(4) Acid phosphate 1,600 pounds 

Kainit 400 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 12.8 per cent; potash, 2.5. 
per cent. 

(5) Acid phosphate 1,600 pounds 

Muriate of potasii 400 pounds 

Analysis: Acid phosphate, 12.8 per cent; potash, 1ft 
per cent. 

(6) Cottonseed meal 700 pounds 

Acid phosphate 1,200 pounds 

Muriate of potash lOO pounds 



APPENDIX. 105 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 11 per cent; nitrogen, 2.1 
per cent; potash, 3 per cent. 

(7) Cottonseed meal 600 pounds 

Acid phosphate 1,000 pounds 

Kainit 300 pounds 

Nicrate of soda 100 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 10 per cent; nitrogen, 2.6 
per cent; potash, 2.3 per cent. 

(8) Cottonseed meal 600 pounds 

Nitrate of soda 200 pounds 

Acid phosphate 1,000 pounds 

Muriate of potash 2 00 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 8.7 per cent; nitrogen, 3.4 
per cent; potash, 5.5 per cent. 

(9) Dried blood (12 per cent) 500 pounds 

Nitrate of soda 300 pounds 

Phosphoric acid 900 pounds 

Muriate of potash 300 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 7.2 per cent; nitrogen, 5.3 
per cent; potash, 7.5 per cent. 

(10) Cottonseed meal 700 pounds 

Nitrate of soda 300 pounds 

Acid phosphate 1,000 pounds 

Analysis: Phosphoric acid, 8.5 per cent; nitrogen, 4.5 
per cent, potash, 0.5 per cent. 

These mixtures approximate, in their proportions, those 

most generally used, and by varying the quantities of the 

different materials, any desired analysis can readily be 

secured. It will be noticed that formulas very rich in 

8 



106 FERTILIZING FOR PROFIT. 

potash have been given, as well as those in which that 
element is very low. Also, that the formulas vary from 
No. 7, which is nearly the common 10 — 2 — 2, to the 
very rich mixtures in Nos. 9 and 10. No. 9 would be a 
fine potato or truck fertilizer in sections where potash 
is needed, while No. 10 would furnish plant food in a 
very concentrated form to the man whose soil does not 
need that element. 

Cottonseed meal in these formulas is figured as con- 
taining 6.2 per cent nitrogen, 2.5 per cent phosphoric 
acid, and 1.5 per cent potash. A good grade will easily 
come up to this analysis, and many samples go above it. 
Always buy cottonseed meal, whether for fertilizing o! 
feeding, by guaranteed analysis. 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



' l^iiw 



